


A Narcissist and a Pragmatist Walk into A Bar

by iwtv



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Drug Abuse, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, also typical vauseman fluff and angst, nothing that isn't on the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:52:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: This starts after Alex gets an early release, only seven months since the end of season 6, because I can't stand the thought of her being in there for four more years. Basically Alex and Piper have to figure out what to do with themselves while also confronting the past and a few new problems. I shamelessly use show quotes, don't judge me.I'll be making regular updates to this. Feel free to leave kudos and comments. Enjoy! Come say hi to me on tumblr @iwt-v.





	1. Chapter 1

She jolts awake, her vocal chords on the end of a desperate sound she suspects is a name.

She is damp all over, her heart beating hard inside her chest. Piper untangles herself from the bed sheets and swings her legs over the bed. Same routine, at least three or four nights a week.

She pads across the narrow floor space to the small bathroom. She flicks on the light over the shower instead of the main light, preferring not to look around at anything in Cal and Neri’s guest bathroom in the dead of night. She splashes cold water over her face and glances into the mirror. She catches the reflection of her arm and the scarred brand there. It seems to stand out more than it did in prison, like a beacon to draw attention towards. The realization of where she would be going and whom she would be picking up later this morning hits her chest hard. It’s amazing she’d even slept at all.

Piper goes back into her bedroom—her brother’s, really—and lays back down. Even after seven months the bed still feels too big for her small body and the room too dark and empty. Every once in a while she still reaches across the bed for a clear plastic toiletry bag she no longer possesses. A week after moving in with her brother she had sat on the toilet and had read everything there was to read on a tube of Colgate, amazed at how pretty the label was and all the ingredients people stuck into their mouths without a second thought. Cal had told her what she had told herself countless times since her release, that there would be an adjustment period and that it would take as long as it would take.

She does little more than doze off and on until the light of dawn creeps through the window. She had raised the blinds after her first night and had left them raised, their privacy and light-blocking qualities unnerving rather than comforting. She enjoys the view of grass and bushes too much.

She eats breakfast with Cal and Neri and gets ready.

“Sure you don’t want me to tag along?” Cal asks her as he walks her to his truck. It feels good to be around Cal. Easy and normal. Her relationship with her brother always had been such.

“Thanks, but I feel confident in my re-mastery of the common truck,” says Piper.

Cal looks at her through his brows with a wane smile. Oh. That wasn’t what he had meant. Piper casts her gaze downward, then shrugs and smiles.

“I’ll be fine, little brother.”

“You’re gonna burn up in that shirt,” he says, nodding at the thin, long-sleeved shirt she’d chosen. It was already hot outside and she was too warm, but she shrugs again and flicks her wrist dismissively. It covers her arms and that was more important. Cal doesn’t need to know why.

Cal sighs and shrugged, thrusting his hands into his vest pockets.

“All righty then, Diana’s all yours,” he says, giving the truck a pat on its hood.

“By the way, I think it’s adorable that you’ve named her Diana. It suits her.”

“Yea? Neri thought it was too Micheal Jackson and ‘Dirty Diana,’ but just between you and me, I don’t think it’s right to keep a truck too clean, you know?”

Piper smiles and pats him on the shoulder before climbing into the vehicle. She pulls out of the driveway and heads down the road. It takes about thirty minutes to reach Litchfield from here. She turns on the radio and tries to concentrate on how pretty the day was shaping up to be and reminds herself not to freak out should a wayward squirrel or rabbit jump out in front of her. That had happened about a month after her release, when Cal was helping her get re-accustomed to driving. She’d been babbling, re-telling the lighter events surrounding the riot and the squirrel had just been there. She’d screamed and drove them off the road, harming only a few weeds in the process. Something to tell to Alex on the drive home, perhaps.

*

Alex walks into the vending room for the third time and looks around at her food choices as though they were part of a museum display. She rubs the coins in her pocket, feeling real money for the first time in years. Everything was either chips or a candy bar, save for the Rice Crispy Treats slot. Did those look good? Was she even hungry?

She had done little more than pick at her last tray of prison food this morning, her mouth craving all the tastes she’d been denied for so long, no thanks to Nicky and Lorna’s teasing. She was sad to leave them and they were sad to see her go (though Nicky made her usual brilliant show of pretending not to be, which just made her get teary-eyed anyway). But her thoughts were too consumed with Piper for anything else to really sink in. The vending room suddenly felt surreal to her, as did the coins in her pocket.

She leaves it and goes to sit down on the bench again. A CO would accompany her to the door any minute. She wishes there was a bathroom in the waiting area, between the actual prison and the visitation restroom. Was she allowed in there now? Technically she wasn’t out yet, but everything was in order for her to be so. She felt in limbo; stuck between two different realms of being.

The early release still amazed her, as did the fact that she was back in minimum and out of max down the hill. Someone high up had finally gotten their act together and had sifted through each individual inmate involved in the riot, creating a list of those who had not been associated with any riot activities to anyone’s knowledge and thus applicable to be reinstated at the minimum security prison. She’d spent a total of five months in max before the transfer.

Five months of true hell so that good old minimum was just as Nicky and Lolly had described it after their stint in max; a fucking vacation.

She’d kept to herself even moreso down the hill, reading even the boring books that didn’t interest her for sake of keeping off everyone’s radar. She had to put up with a few of the druggies and what was left of Badison’s bruised ego but she managed to stay out of trouble.

Alex had trained herself to keep her thoughts about Piper down to a minimum when she wasn’t visiting with her, and she thought even less of whatever her future held in store for her. It was all too overwhelming and made her head ache.

Not that any of that helped all the time.

She felt like a wraith, moving to and from her cell, to and from the yard, the bathroom, the showers. Over and over, day after day. Even with the company of Gloria Mendoza and sometimes Nicky and Red from minimum Alex had days where she started to wonder if there was any real plane of existence beyond the barbed wire fence of the prison.

And on the toughest days she worked extra hard at not giving into despair.

And then came the call to a CO’s office when they gave her the news, scarcely two weeks ago. She was up for early release. No evidence of aiding in the riot. A model inmate, no altercations, all good behavior. At least that’s what they thought.

She’d been back on anti-depressants for some time. The nightmares wouldn’t leave her alone long after she was awake. Mostly she dreamed about that tiny room, her arms bound and her mouth gagged, body naked under a shower curtain. Every once in a while it was the greenhouse and what she’d done in there.

The distant sound of the prison’s door alarm jars her.

Alex shifts on the bench. The clothes they’d given her feel strange. Too baggy in some areas and too tight in others. She looks down at her feet and wonders vaguely if she should keep the black-and-white converses. With the right outfit…

The thought scatters. The CO approaches her, barks her name, and she swallows down as many uncomfortable fears as she can and follows him to the doors. Her heart begins pounding in her chest as she crosses the threshold and steps outside into the sunshine. She was getting out, and she was going to see Piper, to be able to touch her for more than thirty seconds. She was going to _live_ with Piper.

A nondescript brown truck pulls up to the curb a few minutes later, Piper behind the wheel. The surreal feeling returns. She reaches under her coat sleeve and pinches her arm, feeling stupid but also relieved she doesn’t jolt awake in her bunk with the sharp pain.

Once Piper emerges from the truck, she feels her feet propelling her forward. Piper is jogging toward her and Alex inhales deeply.

“No running,” the guard gruffs from behind her. She _was_ running, but she feels his power diminish behind her as Piper grows larger in front of her. And then Piper’s arms are around her, embracing her tightly.

“Alex,” she breaths.

Alex struggles not to bury her face into Piper’s neck and cry. Instead she settles for pressing her lips against the other woman’s, closing her eyes against the tears there. Piper holds onto the kiss for a long moment. When their eyes meet Piper’s are also moist. She cups Alex’s face with her hands gently, but Alex is fisting the front of Piper’s shirt, kissing her again almost anxiously.

“God, I’ve missed you so much,” Piper sobs.

Alex nods, reigning herself in and straightening her glasses.

“Get me the hell out of here, Pipes.”

*

When they reach Cal and Neri’s house Alex finds it more or less how Piper had described it—a modest, vinyl-sided place in an older suburbia. Piper shows her around and introduces her to Cal and his wife.

“ _Mi casa es su casa,_ ” he says to her. “Just make yourself at home. And any strange noises you may or may not hear coming from the garage, you can just ignore.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. Piper gives her brother a look.

“Do I want to ask?”

Cal pulls his lips down and shakes his head wordlessly.

“Well thank you, so much,” Alex says artlessly. “I really appreciate this.”

She can’t shake the feeling of awkwardness at the entire situation. It had taken Piper two visits to convince her that living with her brother was okay. Piper had only just started looking for an apartment. She had complained that her mother Carol was insisting she try to purchase—with her mother’s money, of course—a double-story house like she’d had with Larry. Alex is glad Piper doesn’t automatically agree to go that route.

They eat dinner and she is mostly quiet, listening to the bizarre stories of Cal’s brother and that of his wife’s, who seems to share Cal’s odd sensibilities. The surreal sensation she’d felt when getting out of the penitentiary lingers with her. She’s surrounded by average citizens in average clothing in this average home; no CO’s watching her as she eats a meal of lasagna, much better than the spaghetti-and-meatball Tuesdays from Litchfield minimum.

She feels a pinprick of relief when she notices Piper looking out of sorts as well. Their eyes meet at one point after one of Neri’s jokes. Something about a finding a frog in her underwear drawer? Alex realizes she hadn’t been paying that much attention. Piper is smiling at her. God. The barren days she had longed for that smile.

After dinner Cal offers them some beers and a chance to watch Live PD on the couch, but Piper—thank God—declines, noting that Alex needs to settle in. As they go upstairs Alex mouths a silent ‘thank you’ to Piper. Once they are in the bedroom Alex lets out a huff of air.

“Your brother and his wife are great—”

“But?”

“But nothing. I just…wasn’t ready to…I don’t know. Socialize?”

Piper suddenly hugs her, soft and gentle but urgent all the same. Alex feels her inhale deeply the scent of her hair. She wraps her arms around Piper’s back and imagines physically melting into her.

“It’s perfectly okay,” says Piper, drawing back. “I wanted you all to myself anyway.”

Alex quirks an eyebrow and takes in the bed behind her.

“And this…”

She sits on the mattress and lays back on it.

“Holy fuck. I’m most definitely out of prison.”

Piper giggles, sitting beside her.

“It’s just a full size.”

“After those bunks it feels…”

“Fucking huge, I know.”

Alex sits up, running a hand through her hair and looking around at their bedroom in more detail. Piper looks down at her hands, fidgeting. She feels a heaviness between them, like the hurricane of the past year was being squeezed into unspoken thoughts and emotions and didn’t know how to escape.

“I am sorry,” says Piper, voice heavy with regret. “I don’t have any good ideas for our own place yet. I mean, I know we’ve talked about it and I should have been looking, but…”

She trails off and shrugs, looking across the room at nothing in particular.

“I don’t know,” she finishes with resignation.

“Hey,” says Alex firmly, clamping her hand over her fiancé’s. “Don’t even worry over that right now. Everything’s gonna take time. You’re lucky as hell to have your brother, Pipes.”

Piper nods. “I know. You’re right. And I am so very grateful for Cal. But we can’t stay here forever. We need jobs and cars too. And regardless, it looks like we’re going to be using my parent’s money to at least make a down payment on whatever we decide, in terms of a roof with four walls. Which I am _not_ pleased about.”

She feels the tension in Piper’s fingers, a little too tight where they are intertwined with her own. Piper’s eyes are shadowed.

“ _Pipes._ ”

Piper blinks.

“Huh?”

“One day at a time. Okay?”

Piper slowly nods, biting down on her bottom lip.

“Okay.”

Alex raises a thumb to where her lip disappears into her mouth, grinning.

“This hasn’t changed,” she muses. “Still cute as ever. Even in your ripening age.”

“ _My_ ripening age?” questions Piper, eyes brighter again. “Don’t forget, missy, you are the senior member of this club for two.”

“Hm. When we get officially married I’ll have to introduce you first as the older of the two of us.”

Piper nudges her playfully in the shoulder. They decide on their agenda for the week, starting with a shopping trip for some much-needed clothes and other supplies for Alex tomorrow. Then the job hunting would begin. She doesn’t feel ready for that part at all.

Later that evening as Alex finishes taking off her makeup and brushing her teeth in the bathroom she takes out one of the few belongings she’d brought from prison, a bottle of Lexapro. She pops the pills and downs them with a glass of water. When her eyes meet the mirror again Piper is standing behind her in the doorway. Brows crinkled with concern, she walks in and picked up the bottle.

“When did you start taking these again?”

Alex shrugs. “A few months back.”

Piper’s brows crinkle further as she reads the label.

“After I left?”

Alex levels her eyes at her. “Stop. It wasn’t because of you. Max sucked balls before you left, remember?”

“Did something happen?” Piper presses.

“No. Nothing else happened. I just…needed them.”

“No, of course. You don’t have to explain that to me,” says Piper softly. “I just…you were off them for so long in minimum.”

“Better than getting hooked on illegal shit,” replies Alex.

It doesn’t address Piper’s concern but Piper doesn’t mention it. Instead she nods, uncharacteristically quiet. Alex feels a twinge of regret. She has grown used to Piper’s convoluted ways of shaping situations to be about herself that sometimes Alex forgets she is simply concerned. And the truth was she is on anti-depressants for a myriad of reasons that a shrink would have a field day with, Piper’s absence those last seven months among them. But they didn’t have to talk about that now. Alex takes the bottle from her and sits it down on the sink. She takes Piper’s hands in hers.

“Come be my little spoon?” she asks hopefully.

Piper smiles, all warmth ease this time.


	2. Chapter 2

They settle into the bed for the night. The fit was a bit snug and Piper chuckles at how Alex’s feet just touch its edge but it hardly matters. They face each other and Piper tangles their legs together, arm molding itself around Alex’s midsection.

“You feel good,” says Alex.

“So do you.”

Piper wants to stare at her until her eyes blur. Every day that wasn’t a visitation day she had spent memorizing Alex: The way she slipped her black-framed glasses up on the top of her head, the subtle smile she gave and the way it made a dimple or two show, how studious she looked when she was reading. She’d spent even more time trying to memorize what Alex had felt like.

Now she runs a hand down Alex’s bare arm, curving it to touch the soft skin on the inside of her forearm, fingers brushing over the tattoo she could still make out in the small illumination from a night light. _‘Love is pain.’_

She feels Alex’s eyes on her as she considers the tattoo.

“I wish I hadn’t done it,” Alex says, tucking her arm towards her.

“It’s true though,” Piper replies. “I mean, at least it makes more sense than the beauty fish.”

She touches the back of her neck to indicate the tattoo.

“Yea but we’re not the same wild post-college kids anymore,” says Alex. “We’re going to get married. Legally. And this…”

She looks down and frowns at her arm.

“Maybe we can figure out a way to fix it,” says Piper. “Add to it and turn it into something else.”

Their eyes meet again. Alex looks at Piper’s arm. The swastika that Red and the others had turned into a window was hidden from view but Alex gently brushes her fingers over Piper’s arm just the same, as if her touch could sooth it, and maybe it could.

She watches Alex purse and lick her lips, wondering for the millionth time what really went through the other woman’s head when she saw the brand.

“Maybe,” Alex says softly.

Piper can never forget the searing pain she’d endured when Maria and her gang had forced it onto her, and then to have to endure it all over again, by her own choosing; A second infliction to help conceal her sins of the first.

They grow quiet and as Piper begins to feel sleepy she panics for a short few seconds, wondering if she should tell Alex about her nightmares. She doesn’t want to freak her out in the middle of the night. But she’d dreamt last night, and typically the following night she’s able to sleep more soundly. And, she thinks happily, with Alex finally, physically here, why should she have shitty dreams anyway? She feels comfortable. She feels safe. She wants badly to touch all those places on Alex she hasn’t touched in so long, to feel Alex touching her the same, but she can tell Alex is growing tired as well so she reigns herself in, content at last to just _be._

*

She wakes the next morning and finds Alex sitting up next to her, book in hand as she leans back on her pillows. Piper rolls onto her back and stretches.

“Good morning,” says Alex with that little smile.

Piper grins sleepily, brightening instantly at the sight of her.

“Good morning.”

“Sleep okay?”

Piper considers. The faint tendrils of a dream are on her conscious but out of reach, thank god. Whatever it was it hadn’t been vivid enough to recall.

“I did,” she says, pleased. “You?”

Alex shrugs. “Okay. I guess it’ll take a while to get used to a normal bed again.”

Piper sits up and kisses her cheek. Alex turns and Piper feels a small wave of elation as soft lips meet her own.

“Fuck,” she says. “You’re really here.”

“Mm. I really am. Please, by all means, feel free to oogle and appreciate me like that every morning.”

“I do solemnly swear to oogle and appreciate you every morning,” says Piper. “Well, most mornings,” she adds teasingly.

She wants nothing more than to do just that all morning long. Possibly all day long. But there are things to do. They were going shopping today.

They get up and ready and make their way downstairs. Neri is up and making breakfast while her husband is still in the bedroom. Piper sees Alex eyeballing the coffee machine and she happily make her fiancé her first cup of coffee as a free woman. Alex takes a sip of it, then a swallow, closing her eyes and moaning.

“This. Is so good.”

“You can go sit on the toilet with it if you want,” says Piper, referencing Alex’s comments when she’d told Alex she was getting out. “It’s a great bodily experience.”

They chuckle, explaining the joke to Neri, who then (of course) has one of her own stories involving coffee to add to the conversation. Cal joins them after breakfast and drops them off at the mall on his way to work.

“Is it okay that I’m actually excited to go shopping?” asks Alex as they walked towards the mall doors. “I mean it’s always such a pain trying on clothes but I legit feel so girly right now.”

Piper snorts. “Please. When I came here after getting out, I browsed the lingerie section for a whole hour. It was like I was mesmerized by all the colors. And did you know they have ventilated underwear now? It actually keeps your naughty bits cool when it’s hot outside.”

Alex’s eyes widen. “No way.”

“Way.”

There is a security guard—a mall cop—standing by the door as they enter. His shirt is the same bright blue as the CO’s uniforms had been. Thumbs tucked into his belt, he nods at the two of them. No batons or handcuffs there, but as they pass him a chill travels down Piper’s spine all the same. Her heart speeds up in her chest. She imagines him turning and yelling at her as though she’s done something wrong.

“Hey. You okay?” Alex’s voice breaks through.

Piper gives a shake of her head and blinks. “Yea. Fine. Just…they creep me out still.”

Alex follows her gaze to the guard behind them as they enter the mall. She lays a reassuring hand on Piper’s back.

“Pretty sure he’s more concerned about what to eat for lunch than he is about urban mall crime. I think you’re safe.”

Piper smiles weakly and nods. It’s not the first time since she’s been out that she’s passed a uniformed man and felt uncomfortable. She tells herself it’s irrational. Not all men in uniforms are CO’s, and not all men in uniforms pose a danger to her.

She pushes her fears to the side as they plunge head-on into the mall, checking out department store after department store. Her mother had let her borrow a credit card for her and—after a painfully long and ridiculous period of Carol’s protests about Alex needing to learn independence in the real world—had agreed her fiancé-slash-wife could use it as well.

After a couple of hours and a few shopping bags happily nestled in Alex’s arms they decide to stop for lunch. Alex suddenly grabs her wrist and squeezes.

“Oh my god, look. A Chick-fil-A!” she exclaims. “I freaking _loved_ their waffle fries, remember?”

“Oh no, we can’t,” says Piper.

Alex looks offended. “What? Why not?”

“Didn’t you hear about them? Back in like 2012 it came out that one of their head CEOs or something opposed same-sex marriages, and that the company supports anti-LGBT organizations.”

Alex’s face fell. “Seriously? But…waffle fries, Pipes!”

Piper firmly shakes her head and tries not to snicker at how cute Alex looks just now. “No Al. It would be wrong. Where’s your sense of community? And I’m supposed to be ‘the straight one,’ remember?”

Alex smile-frowns at her and the joke. She smacks her lips.

“Fine. But don’t expect me to boycott _Braveheart_ just because Mel Gibson is an asshole in real life.”

“ _Braveheart_ is fine,” replies Piper. “It’s old and it’s already made its money. Chick-fil-A, on the other hand…”

She waves a hand over the store to indicate the company as a whole. Alex concedes to her point. They find a Steak-N-Shake instead, where Piper watches, amused, as Alex savors the first bites of a real burger for the first time in over a year.

The rest of their shopping day is uneventful. They pass a few more mall cops on their way out. Again, despite herself, Piper feels nervous around them. One of them is a burly male with a beard who instantly reminds her of Piscatella.

Her mind flashes backwards to that fateful day: The tiny room, cramped with the bodies of her fellow friends, crying and terrified out of their minds, the moments of horror that seemed to drag on for hours as Piscatella scalped Red… _Look away, girls._ …

And she, helpless to do anything about it, especially the all-consuming moment of fear when Alex had jumped Piscatella and had gotten thrown down on the ground. The sound of her arm snapping…

Something big and black crawls over her, inside her. She can’t get enough air. Her heart is pounding in her ears.

“Pipes, you okay?”

Alex’s voice sounds far away. She stops walking. Why can’t she breathe? She squeezes her eyes shut and bends over, hands on her knees.

“Alex I can’t breathe. I can’t…”

Alex is kneeling in front of her, hands cupping her face.

“Look at me Piper. Look at me. I think you’re having a panic attack. It’ll pass. Just stay calm. Breathe.”

Piper inhales deeply over and over again. Eventually the air in her lungs starts circulating properly again. The growing sense of tunnel vision dissipates. She slowly stands up straight. Alex is still cupping her face, dark eyes full of worry.

“Hey. Are you all right?”

Piper places her hands over the ones on her face, trying to steady herself.

“I think so. Yea.”

She takes a final deep breath and lets it out, blinking. Around them several people have stopped and are staring. The security guard is coming towards them.

“Hey, is she all right? Do I need to call an ambulance?”

Piper takes an involuntary step back from him, weakly raising her palm up.

“I’m okay.”

Alex steps in-between them before he can get any closer. Her voice is brusque.

“Just back off. She’s fine.”

The guard, who looks like he wouldn’t hurt a fly, stops, blinking in confusion.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Alex says. “Thanks for your concern. She just needs some air.”

They leave the mall. Piper steps into the sunlight and takes another deep breath, running her hands through her hair. Her fear switches to anger and embarrassment.

“Fuck me. So _stupid!_ ”

“It was the mall cop, wasn’t it?” asks Alex, still watching her with concern.

Piper tightens her jaw and shakes her head. “He just reminded me of…”

“Piscatella. I know,” says Alex grimly. “I thought the same thing. But he wasn’t. And you’re not stupid. We went through something fucked up in that room, Pipes. It’s only natural for you to get rattled.”

Suddenly very needy, she hugs Alex to her.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she says, breathing in her scent.

Alex gently strokes her hair.

“Me too, kid.”

*

They stay busy for the remainder of the week, but Piper’s incident in the mall had worried her. They had never gotten a chance to talk about what had happened their last day in Litchfield Minimum. Piper had never shown any signs of post-traumatic issues after she had found her in max, but that meant little. If she was being truthful with herself, Alex doesn’t want to talk about it. She can only assume Piper doesn’t either.

You could take a gal out of prison but it didn’t necessarily follow you took prison out of the gal, she realizes.

They stay busy. She is excited to be doing things again, to wake up in the morning and to be able to put on actual clothes and to walk outside into the sunshine (or rain, or whatever) without a guard or a fence or walls to keep her in place. Everything looks and tastes so new all over again. She’d been out before of course, but she had been alone and terrified of retaliation from Kubra. This is different. She is with Piper now. This feels like a true new beginning.

She is cautious of it.

She still has dark spells. Moments when the space around her detaches itself from her and she worries herself into a rut. Piper calls it spinning out. She’s still doing it. The Lexapro helps, though she loathes the fact that she has to take it. Her dreams are still troubled but that isn’t the main reason for the medication.

Alex has to snap herself out of that train of thought though, because it seems like each time she descends into those depths Piper is at her side or nearby. She is mindful of Alex’s moods, ready to keep her from spinning out. Alex can tell she wants to know, to ask a question, but Piper never does. At least not a direct question about what’s bothering her. Alex is grateful. She realizes with a start she isn’t ready to face some demons yet. For starters, murder was murder, even in self defense.

And then there’s the thing she still hasn’t breathed a word about to Piper. She has not, in seven months time, told her the real reason Madison “Badison” Murphy had left her alone in max was because she herself had intervened on her fiancé’s behalf. Alex can’t make up her mind if it’s even worth bringing up. It hardly matters now, does it? Pipes had been so proud of herself, thinking her meeting with that correctional officer had made all the difference. More to the point, she hadn’t wanted Alex to get involved.

She _would not_ have wanted Alex to confront a psychopathic murderer on her behalf…

“Anything you want to share?”

Alex blinks. They’re taking a walk down the block. The day is bright and sunny. Kids are on their bikes. A dog barks. Alex still feels like she’s in limbo.

“Sorry,” she says. “Just zoning out. Sometimes everything still doesn’t feel quite real, you know?”

There, a bit of truth. Small steps. Piper nods.

“No, I get it. Honestly I still feel like that sometimes,” she adds. “Like I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. But luckily every time I took down they’re still firmly planted on my feet.”

Alex smiles at her.

“You have tiny feet, too.”

Piper glances down at her tennis shoes.

“Yea well, only if you compare them to your goliath feet.”

“Oh come on. I wear I size a size eight. That’s not huge.”

“Eight and a half,” corrects Piper. “And I wear a six and a half. Not tiny.”

“That’s pretty fucking small, babe.”

Piper glances at her sideways, lips curling up.

“Whatever. You like my small feet.”

“I do,” Alex confesses. Then, grinning, she adds, “Especially the way you spread your toes out when you’re coming.”

Piper spins on her, wide-eyed. “Jesus! Could you announce that a little louder? There are children around.”

Alex laughs. They glance at each other again as they walk. Alex is reminded that they haven’t had sex yet, though not for lack of want. They have kissed and cuddled aplenty on their full-size bed, but Cal and Neri’s movements and voices carry too easily from downstairs. And after all the lights were out they’ve both been too tired to really give it a go so far.

“So tomorrow,” starts Piper. “We’ve already filled out a bunch of job applications for everything within walking distance, except one place.”

Alex throws her a look. “If you’re going to say what I think you’re going to say…”

“Easy Mart,” says Piper firmly.

Alex rolls her eyes and groans.

“I know, I know,” Piper concedes. “But it’s probably going to be our best chance. They’re taking interviews for a bunch of jobs right now—”

“Because it’s Easy Mart and people quit all the time,” Alex interjects.

“AND,” says Piper, talking through her, “The ad said they want people who are willing to work up to 40 hours a week. Even if just one of us could get those hours each week, that would be a good start.”

Alex huffs and frowns, but.

“Sadly, you’re actually on cue with all of that,” she relents.

There’s a tension in her head at the thought of actually having a real job.

“But I’ve never actually held a normal job before. I mean what the fuck would I do?”

“Neither have I, remember?” Piper counters. “You practically snatched me up straight out of college, filling out a resume to be a waitress, for God’s sake. And you—we—would do whatever they tell us to do. Easy shit. Help customers and sell shit. And you’re so good at selling shit.”

Alex meets her gaze again, acknowledging the truth to that statement, however illegitimate her ‘shit’ had been.

“All right,” she says at last. “We’ll go check it out tomorrow. But I’m telling you right now I am _not_ going to be one of those greeters who has to stand at the entrance and smile at people until my face hurts. That is a job for a fucking robot, not a human.”

“Fuck that,” agrees Piper, crinkling her nose. “No robot jobs, check.”

Then Piper smiles again and holds her hand, absently biting down ever so slightly on her bottom lip to hide a smile. It makes Alex warm all over to see her so happy.

“Hey,” she says suddenly. “Didn’t you say Cal and Neri were going camping this weekend? What if…”

Piper waits, brows raised in anticipation.

“What if we stayed at the house and had a little party to ourselves instead?”

Piper brightened, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“We could totally do that. A bottle or two of wine and some music, maybe?”

*

They walk to the giant blue superstore the next day and fill out applications. The positions that are up for grabs for two ex-inmates with virtually no work experience are much more limited than they’d hoped, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, Piper knows. Prison had taught her that lesson, more than once and often painfully. Even so she wishes they had better choices.

They spend a few minutes browsing around afterward, winding up in the electronics and movie department.

“Look at all the new films that have come out since we’ve been away,” she says in awe, looking over the titles on bluray. Alex giggles.

“Pipes, you’ve been in jail for less than two years.”

Piper looks at her, owl-eyed to the point of humor. Purposefully misinterpreting Alex’s comment, she says, “I _know!_ ” and holds up two of Marvel movies. “God, look at this. I’m so behind. There have been _two_ more of these since I was in prison.”

Alex gravitates over to the tv shows and makes a little “oh” sound. She picks up a collectable tin that contains the entirety of _I Love Lucy_. Piper immediately goes to touch it.

“Remember when we binged on this in Belgium for like, two whole nights?” says Alex. “I think I actually missed some business calls because of Lucy giving Ricki that hilarious hair treatment in the kitchen.”

Piper laughs. “I remember! That was fun. Lucy was so pure and innocent. More shows should be like Lucy.”

“You know,” says Alex, “people didn’t really live like that in the 50’s. I mean that’s when a bunch of domestic housewives became pill poppers, trapped in unhappy marriages by a dominating man who thought that women shouldn’t work.”

“Hence the point of television, darling,” says Piper, not missing a beat.

“Alex Vause?”

The unfamiliar voice comes from behind them and they both turn as one. There is a woman there, roughly their age and wearing the tall-tale blue shirt of the supercenter, walkie talkie in her belt.

“Francesca?” Alex asks back in surprise.

The woman smiles broadly and bounces a little as Alex approaches her and they hug.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” asks Alex, obviously happy to see the other woman. Francesca shrugs, still beaming.

“Just a summer stint for some extra cash while I earn my Ph.D. And what about you, you’re out!”

There was no mistaking what she meant by ‘out,’ which made Piper even more curious.

“Piper this is my second cousin, Francesca,” says Alex, turning back to her.

Piper feels a small amount of relief wash over her, surprised at how quick she was to jump to conclusions. Past indiscretions were in the past, she reminded herself, suddenly feeling ashamed. She holds out her hand and Francesca shakes it vigorously.

“Hello Piper.”

“Hi,” says Piper, smiling.

“Piper is my wife,” says Alex, her eyebrow quirking up with pride at Piper. “Well, it’s not _official_ official yet, but we’re working on that.”

Francesca’s eyes widen between the two of them before settling on Alex.

“Holy crap, wow! Congrats! I never thought of you as the ‘settling down’ type.”

The phrase strikes Piper. Settling down? Was that what they were doing? She sloshes it around in her brain, not sure if it’s settling there correctly.

Alex explains that her and Francesca had grown up together, often bonding at family reunions. Piper vaguely recalls Alex telling her about those; her cousin’s part of the family was more middle-class than Alex’s and liked throwing the get-togethers every summer.

“So listen, I can help you guys along, so to speak, if you want to get jobs here,” Francesca is saying a few minutes later, when Piper mentions the reason they are here.

“I can put in a good word for both of you with the managers. Most of them are not assholes and will actually consider hiring ex-inmates,” Francesca adds hopefully.

Alex thanks her and asks for her phone number. Alex confesses she didn’t yet have a phone. Francesca spreads her arms out.

“Well you’re in the right place for that,” she says.

Despite Piper’s insistence it was okay for her to get a Smartphone using the card Piper’s mother had given her, Alex won’t budge, instead accepting a much cheaper tracphone.

“I’m not gonna let your mother see a bill for three hundred dollars for a phone,” she says in her defense. “I’ll get a better one later.”

“But you can’t even play games on that,” Piper whines. “And I already told you, my mother told me I can spend this money however I need to get back on my feet.”

“ _Your_ feet,” Alex emphasizes. “Your mom’s still not exactly on the lesbian bandwagon yet, Pipes.”

“I know,” Piper grumbles, feeling a too familiar resentment bubble up inside her. “But she will be. There’s no way now she can ignore you. She knows I love you and that you’re going to be part of her and my father’s wonderfully insane, white privileged family.”

Alex smiles but still ends up with a tracphone. She gets Francesca’s number and promises to call her soon so they could get together, all three of them.

As they leave the supercenter Piper can’t get the phrase ‘settling down’ out of her head.

“Are we settling down?” she asks thoughtfully. “I mean, yes, we’re together now, doing the marriage thing and living together, getting steady jobs, but…does that mean we’re “settling down?”

She air quotes it. Alex doesn’t answer right away, shrugging.

“I don’t know. I mean, by definition that’s what all those things you just listed are part of.”

It sounds more like a question to Piper’s ears than an answer. She raises a brow at Alex.

“So…we are settling down?” she tries again. “Putting our crazy ways behind us? We never…that was never us. Before.”

Alex’s chest deflates with a sigh, lips twisting up in one corner thoughtfully.

“I know,” she said. “Honestly I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it before.”

“Neither have I.”

They say nothing more on the subject, though Piper can tell it was now on Alex’s mind as well. She chews around the concept in her mind as they wait for Cal to pick them up. They didn’t _have_ to settle down. They could shape their life however they wanted, couldn’t they? She’s not even sure of that. She tries to picture it, the two of them staying put and…doing what? Does this mean they wouldn’t be able to travel ever again, too busy struggling to make ends meet? Her thoughts had darkened by the time they made it back to her brother’s. A small seed of doubt plants itself inside her. What if they wanted different things now?

But Jesus, they didn’t even have a damn apartment yet. She’s looking too far ahead. Absently her fingers scratch over her long-sleeve shirt where the brand was. The shirt was thin enough that she could feel the outline of her marred skin with her fingertips if she pressed. She realizes with a start that all the shirts she’s bought are like this one.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you made it through chapter 2 this chapter should be a lot more interesting. There's wine, some angst, soft scar touching and some hot touching in other places. :)

The weekend can’t come soon enough. When it does they politely decline Cal and Neri’s invitation once more, though Neri spends a few extra minutes highlighting the fun of camping. Cal nudges his wife in the arm.

“Honey, I’m sure they just want some alone time together. I read somewhere that during the first two months of their newfound freedom, it’s critically important that ex-inmates re-establish the habits of human bonding as soon as possible, including sexual intercourse, so that they can get accustomed to being social animals again.”

Piper rolls her eyes.

“Jesus, Cal.”

Alex looks away a little flushed but she’s also biting down a smile.

“Yes, Jesus,” agrees Neri, smacking him upside the head.

“Ow! What? It’s important!” insists Cal, oblivious to his lack of social queues.

They leave a short time later, with Cal telling Piper to call him if she needs anything at all. She hugs him good-bye for the weekend. Cal starts “Diana’s” engine and pats her side out the window, then honks the horn, making both Piper and Alex jump.

“You two crazy kids take care,” he yells out the window and past Neri’s bickering form. “See you in a couple of days.”

“Bye,” says Alex, joining Piper in waving at them as they pull out of the driveway.

“Your brother is a trip,” she tells her as they walked back inside. “He has no filter ever, does he?”

“Nope,” says Piper. “Now you know how the two of us together drive our parents insane.”

Piper goes straight into the kitchen and pulls out one of two bottles of red wine from inside a cabinet, the last purchases made from Easy Mart. She waves a hand over the bottle’s label. Alex checks the time. It’s just after four.

“A little early for cocktail hour, isn’t it?”

Piper shrugs. “We could wait, but why? It’s not like we have jobs or anything in the morning,” she smirks.

“Point taken.”

“Then may I present to you, the finest Easy Mart’s beer and wine section has to offer, a soft, ripe, and elegant merlot from 2014, courtesy of Napa Valley.”

“Oh my,” says Alex, pushing her glasses up on her nose and pretending to be impressed. “May I have a sample, ma’am?”

“But of course,” Piper says in her best English accent. She gets them two glasses and pours a dainty amount into Alex’s. Alex swirls the liquid around the sides of her glass and sticks her nose inside, sniffing. Piper is grinning at her game. Alex takes an equally dainty sip and smacks her lips. The wine immediately makes her want to pucker as though it’s the first time she’s tasted it and she realizes it’s been nearly two years since she’s had any.

“I’ll take the whole bottle.”

“Sold. To the tall, dark Vulcan with refined taste buds.”

Alex pinches her lightly in the side. Piper squeaks and pulls back, then fills up both their glasses. They have pasta and salad for dinner, also with wine. By the time seven o’clock rolls around Piper realizes they’re both giddy with drink. They are on the couch, chatting about this and that and watching re-runs of America’s Funniest Pets, adding in their own commentary along the way and occasionally laughing hysterically at something.

Eventually Piper finds all the music channels on Cal and Neri’s television, a nifty wonder Alex had not even known existed.

“See, we’ve been away too long,” Piper laments as she turns on the 90s station.

“Oh my god,” Alex blurts out when _I’ve Got the Power_ by Snap fills the room. Piper howls with laughter. They listen to it, bobbing their heads in unison. While it was true they had managed to get access to some music while in minimum their choices had still been limited. Now, as Alex looks through the tv guide at all the choices she’s dizzy by the time she puts down the remote. Just a short while ago she’d been the one teasing Piper about being a jailbird lightweight.

For a brief moment Alex felt the all-too familiar sense of detachment trying to take hold of her, but she was in too good a mood to let it.

“I feel like I’ve re-entered the twilight zone of my teenage years,” says Piper, polishing off her wine glass and bringing Alex back into the moment. Her fiancé pops up off the couch, dancing her way towards the kitchen. Alex quickly swallows down her wine, trying to catch up.

“Hey wait a minute I’m not done!”

“Better hurry then!” Piper sings out to her from the kitchen.

“Fuck,” mutters Alex, though she’s grinning to herself as she takes a final swallow of the merlot. She has no shame admitting that she misses being intoxicated at the moment. She can feel the flush in her cheeks and the pleasant sway in her head. She hops off the couch and joins Piper in the kitchen. Piper, who’s wiggling her ass in tight pants as she pours herself a glass and dances to Madonna and _Vogue_.

“Damn Chapman, nice moves,” comments Alex. She leans against the fridge and holds out her glass, gazing at the other woman through her brows.

Piper grins at her. Her eyes perform a quick sweep over the expanse of Alex’s lower half, which consists of a pair of short jean shorts.

“Thanks, Legs,” quips Piper. “Though I’m pretty sure that’s a dress code violation, Vause.”

“That going to be a problem?” Alex asks as she accepts another glass of wine.

Piper very deliberately licks her lips and bats her eyelashes.

“I sure hope not.”

She smacks her fiancé on the ass and skitters back into the living room before Alex can swat her back. They spend the rest of the evening remembering adventures on their worldly travels and reminiscing about the antics of their friends still in prison.

By ten o’clock Alex is wiped and has a heady buzz. Next to her Piper looks much the same. They’re sprawled out comfortably on the couch, heads thrown back and legs entangled.

“Damn I’ve become a lightweight,” mumbles Alex.

With some effort Piper lifts her head off the couch to look at her, eyes bloodshot and heavy.

“Are you drunk?” she asks. There’s something cute and almost naïve about the way she asks the obvious and Alex snorts at her.

“Not as bad as you.”

“Bullshit.”

They both giggle. Piper pushes herself up straight.

“It’s fucking hot,” she moans. She peels off her long-sleeve shirt and tosses it on the floor, now wearing just a plain blue t-shirt. Alex’s eyes immediately flit to her arms, both the brand and the white-inked words of ‘Trust No Bitch’ now visible. Piper notices and shies her arm away. The gesture makes Alex’s chest ache. Even here, safe and just the two of them drunk after a good night, Piper’s shame is palpable.

“It’s okay,” Alex says softly, taking her arm and gently turning it over. She sits up on the couch and presses her lips to the swastika very softly. When she looks up Piper is watching her, expression solemn.

“I deserved it,” she says flatly.

“Bullshit,” says Alex. A flash of that night comes to her, when she helps hold Piper down while Red administers the red-hot tong edge to Piper’s marred skin. Piper had wailed and cried in pain. She had looked up at Alex standing behind her. Alex had never heard that much anguish in a person’s voice before.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._

Her eyes tear up as a renewed wave of anger hits her.

“If I’d caught Maria doing that to you I’d have shanked her in the fucking gut,” she says with venom.

Piper looks incredibly fragile now, blinking slowly as though not convinced of any wrong doing that was not her own.

“Then I deserve this one,” she says, touching the words that, unlike the swastika, she had actually allowed onto her arm, courtesy of Stella. She looks back at Alex almost defensively. “You can’t say that I don’t.”

Alex sighs, not quite sure what to say about this sore spot between them. Finally she settles on something, as true as she can be.

“Stella was a fucking leech, Piper. I’ll always be angry you had an affair with her, but she was just using you the whole time.”

A tear slides down Piper’s cheek that she quickly wipes at.

“I knew that,” she says quietly, casting her eyes skyward to stave off fresh tears. “I suspected it. But I knew I had fucked things up between us and I was terrified to be alone.”

Her voice cracks at her admission. Alex knew sooner or later one of them would have to shatter the illusion that everything was fine. Piper curls her arms up against her body, despite having just admitted to being too warm.

“What about that one?” Alex asks, nodding at Piper’s side, indicating the fourth marking on her skin under her shirt.

Piper glances down, looking pained.

“Stand up,” says Alex, rising off the couch.

Piper obeys, looking as though she’s bracing for impact.

“Take off your shirt.”

Alex expects a demand as to why, but instead Piper simply does as she’s told, crossing her arms and shedding her last layer. The black infinity sign she’d given herself in the grip of her power trip in prison is visible just above her bra line. Alex bends down and kisses that too, just as softly as she’d kissed the brand. Piper’s skin is warm on her lips. She stands back up and kisses Piper on the lips. Their eyes meet and Piper holds her gaze, bloodshot eyes and all.

“I don’t want you to feel ashamed anymore, not around me,” Alex says.

That finally earns her a tiny smile.

“Your turn,” says Piper.

“What?”

“Your scar from the surgery. I’ve never really looked at it.”

“All right,” says Alex after a pause. She pulls off her shirt.

“But if we’re comparing sizes, I definitely win,” she adds cheekily.

Piper smiles more easily this time. She stands behind Alex’s shoulder. Piper’s fingers touch her. She can feel the difference from where they touch her healthy skin versus where they touch the scar tissue. Piper inhales a little sharply, fingers trailing down the length of it a good five or six inches. Alex closes her eyes when Piper’s lips touch it; two chaste kisses where it begins and where it ends. The memory of that night is never far from Alex’s mind, even now, as tired and full of wine as she was.

Piper walks back to her front. The wine definitely has a hold of her and she looks like Pooh after too much honey.

“For the record, I really, really wanted to have sex with you tonight.”

Alex chuckles. “The feeling is completely mutual. Less wine next time, hmm?”

Piper nods. Then she kisses her; a less chaste kiss this time, her tongue just slipping inside Alex’s mouth. Alex kisses her back slowly, just enough to wet her lips.

“Fuck. I am _so_ tired,” she moans unhappily.

“I’m glad I still have that effect on you, post-scar talk,” replies Piper with a sleepy smile.

*

Red’s face is tear-streaked and sorrowful. She sits on the cold metal floor of a tiny cell suspended from the floor, like a bird cage. Piper and Nicky are in cages below her, bound and gagged. The bars were all gold; shiny and beautiful.

She holds the gun in her hand and feels its weight. Piscatella is standing far down the hallway, like a shadowed Grim Reaper. Then suddenly there’s so much blood everywhere. She holds a machete in her red hands, pieces of him on the floor all around her…

Alex’s eyes pop open and she jolts awake, almost sitting up in bed. Her throat and chest burns and she’s trembling all over. Her words come out as hard whispers.

“Oh fuck, oh Jesus.”

The reality of the darkened bedroom creeps back to her. Her heart is hammering in her chest as though she’s ran a marathon. Next to her Piper wakes.

“Alex?” she asks sleepily.

Alex can’t reply. She wipes her face with her hand, trying hard to focus on her surroundings and to shake the images from her head. Piper’s voice comes to her again, this time more awake and edged with concern.

“Alex? What’s wrong?”

Piper shifts and sits up. Alex swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands up, raking her fingers roughly through her hair.

“I’m sorry. Nothing. It was a dream,” she manages, voice raw to her ears. As her eyes adjust to the darkness she focuses on the bluish light coming through the window Piper never covered. A multitude of things well up inside her and she struggles against letting them loose.

_Not now, not now, please not now…_

Another flash of the agonizing faces of her friends. Of the cold eyes of Piscatella. And Jesus Christ, Aydin. She’d covered his mouth, pinched his nose shut so he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t call out, as though she’d done it before. She’d chopped him up into pieces…

“Fuck,” she sobs out. It sounds like shattering glass and she hates herself for it, hates how it sends Piper to her feet after her, coming around the bed in only her nightshirt and panties.

“Hey, it’s okay…”

“No, it’s not okay,” Alex stammers. “Nothing is okay.” More shattered glass.

Piper’s hands stumble in the darkness to find her. Alex holds her arms out, stopping Piper from pulling her close and clutches to her arms instead.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she says through hard breaths. “I have fucking nightmares all the time. What he did to us, to Red, and what _I_ did…to Aydin…not just killing him, but fucking _cutting him up_ Jesus Christ, how did I do that, Piper? How?”

She had always been able to hold people at bay before, to allow them in to a point and then stop it if she so pleased. But not Piper.

Piper pushes against her, muttering her name softly and intensely and Alex finds herself too weak to push back. Piper holds her face in her hands. Alex drops her head and squeezes her eyes shut, sobbing.

“Alex, listen to me. Listen.”

Alex tries to pull away but Piper is having none of it.

“Alex, you are the strongest woman I’ve ever known, and you fucking _survive_. You survive because you want to, for yourself and for us. You’re not a bad person, Alex. Look at me.”

A shudder passes through her. She swallows hard and raises her eyes. Piper has that way of boring into her soul sometimes, like now. Her eyes are little more than dim pinpricks of light from the window but it’s enough.

“You’re not a good person because I love you,” Piper says. “You’re a good person because you _are_.”

Her lungs feel like they deflate all at once and Alex pulls Piper’s face to her, kissing her hard. She kisses and kisses and kisses as though she’s a woman starving, then pushes Piper down on the bed, pulling her legs up and onto the mattress in one deft move. She grapples at Piper’s panties and pulls them down and off, pushing her legs open and kisses her sex, tonguing at it.

“Alex,” Piper breathes. Alex looks up at her just in time to see her brows knit together, lips parted.

She wants to feel anything but the horrid revulsion that rises up in her throat when she closes her eyes at night, when she pictures Piscatella’s stone-cold face and the anguish of Red’s torture like a red-hot brand that has scarred her deeper than mere flesh.

She opens her mouth and takes Piper inside her, sucks at her and pushes her tongue against Piper’s clit. Her hands clamp possessively over Piper’s thighs and Piper lets out a shaky moan above her. Alex pushes herself up, driving her mouth and tongue tightly against Piper’s pussy and feeling her wetness seep to the surface. She laves the flat of her tongue all over the sensitive folds until Piper is soaking wet and panting. She comes on a high-pitched wail, muscles contracting uncontrollably around Alex’s mouth.

Alex raises her head and Piper immediately tugs her up until their lips are clashing violently again, Piper’s scent still filling Alex’s nostrils. Then Alex is on her back and Piper’s fingers find their way down, down and then inside her.

Alex throws her head back on the pillow and closes her eyes, legs falling apart as Piper begins fucking her, her breath hot against Alex’s cheek. She puts her whole body into it, fingers greedily filling her and working on pulling her orgasm from her. They dance and writhe together until Alex is overflowing with need. She comes with her teeth clenched and her fists in Piper’s hair.

Afterwards Piper plants kisses all over her cheeks and lips and jaw and chest, muttering in fervid whispers how much she loves her. Alex feels it as though it throbs in the air around them. Eventually her nightmare fades, replaced only by everything that’s Piper.

*

Piper stares at the curve of Alex’s right shoulder until her eyes start to blur. Alex sleeps on her side, facing Piper, her arm slack in front of her face. With the morning light stretching like fingers through the window and touching Alex’s shoulder just so, it makes her look like a painting, each stroke painstaking and gorgeous.

She thinks about Alex kissing her scars last night and how, even though she knew she was pushing Alex to judge her, Alex had refused. Alex knew her only too well.

And then the heartbreaking moments after Piper had woken up to the sounds of Alex’s nightmare. Even in the dark Piper could see how utterly wrecked she’d looked, her expression haunted with too many memories. It broke her heart to see Alex upset, to see her cry. Piper had felt a searing hatred of herself. It was her fault, all of it. She was the reason Alex had returned to prison; the reason Alex had been one of the unfortunate girls Pinscatella had locked in that god forsaken room.

The reason Alex had to kill to survive.

 _You’re so fucking selfish._ She repeats the words again, here in the growing daylight of their bed. She is trying, though.

It’s hard to hold on to her anger while gazing at her fiancé’s sleeping face. So serene and peaceful. Calling her a sleeping angel is a little too sappy, but Piper figures if Alex had been around during the Renaissance or before she could have been the subject of some Michelangelo-level of artistic expression; an ode to angelic figures, her pale skin framed by her inky black hair, floating around her head.

Alex stirs. Her eyes flutter open. When she focuses on Piper she smiles sleepily.

“Hey,” she says softly.

“Hey,” Piper says back.

Alex stretches and rolls onto her back.

“What time is it?”

“A little after 8:30.”

Alex makes a ‘mmm’ sound in acknowledgement. They fall silent for a few moments. Piper is still watching her. She mentally traces the outline of her body, both above the sheets and below, with an invisible finger.

 _I will never hurt you again._ She says it like a mantra inside her head a few times. Her eyes land on the rose tattoo on her upper arm. She reaches out and brushes her fingers over it. It’s faded a little since the first time she laid eyes on it, so many years ago.

“I should get that touched up.”

Piper blinks.

“What?”

“The tattoo. Don’t you think?”

Piper drags herself out of her head.

“Sure. You know I was thinking maybe we could get matching tattoos of something. Or maybe pride flags on our shoulders. I’ve never really done anything to show I’m part of the gay community.”

“Hmm, I’d love to take you to a pride rally some day,” says Alex.

Piper perks up, this idea catching her attention. “You’ve been to one of those? Like where people flood the streets and there’s giant floats and men dancing in loincloths?”

Alex lets out a small chuckle, shoulders shaking slightly.

“That’s the idea, and yea I have. Not long after we met actually. There was one here in New York. It was pretty damn cool.”

Then her smile falters. She twists towards Piper slightly, propped up on an elbow.

“Also about last night. I’m sorry if it was weird. I didn’t mean…I didn’t know that was going to happen, after I woke up.”

“What? No,” Piper says firmly, also rising up on an elbow. Alex’s face is in its usual neutral zone but Piper feels the uncertainty in her all the same.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says. “I was just so glad I was able to be there for you when you needed me. Finally.”

She wants to suck the word back down her throat after she speaks it because Alex looks at her with new concern etched on her face. Piper drops her eyes. Her chest feels leaden with all her wrong-doings. She mentally scolds herself. But Alex’s finger is lifting up her chin. When they’re face-to-face she leans over and presses her lips to Piper’s. She isn’t certain if it’s supposed to be a reassuring kiss or just a kiss but she accepts it happily. It helps to push away the anger.

“I have nightmares too,” Piper says gently, reaching over and giving Alex’s arm a little squeeze.

Alex gazes softly at her and kisses the hand over her arm before rolling onto her back.

“I just thought that being away from prison and all the shit associated with it would make it stop. But I guess it isn’t that easy.”

“Well,” says Piper, “Next time you wake up from a nightmare, feel free to use me as often as you need.”

She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, broad smile on her lips and Alex chuckles.

“Yes ma’am. So what’s on the agenda today?” Alex asks, ready for a change in the subject.

“I’m not sure that we had an agenda for today, did we?”

“Francesca is supposed to call me sometime today to let us know about the Easy Mart thing. Other than that…I think you’re right. We are lacking a plan. Let’s just do this all day.”

Alex gestures to the bed.

“Lay in bed? Do nothing?” asks Piper with false disappointment, smile on her face. “That sounds like slacking off, Vause.”

“Pfft,” replies Alex. “And besides, we won’t always be doing _nothing_ ,” she adds slyly, a hand reaching under the sheets to nip at Piper’s nipple.

“Ow!”

Piper flinches and smacks at her hand. She quickly finds Alex’s ribs and starts to tickle her. Alex’s whole body flinches away, laughter bubbling out of her in-between sentiments of ‘stop!’ and ‘fuck off.’

They don’t get out of bed until noon. Alex’s cousin calls after lunch. Francesca invites them out for coffee to discuss possible interviews. The store has just done a round of interviews, however, so it might be at least another month before they have more. Alex knows she should be disappointed, and she is—just a little. But mostly she’s relieved. She doesn’t know what that means and it makes her anxious. If Piper feels the same way she hides it when Alex tells her and about the invite for coffee.

“You go ahead,” Piper tells Alex. “I should probably call my mom. I’ve been putting it off for the last week.”

Alex makes a face. “Yea, you probably should. Let her know her daughter isn’t planning another drug trip with the wicked bitch of the west.”

Piper frowns. There’s no malice in Alex’s voice but she feels the sting all the same and how, even though Alex won’t admit it, it must hurt that her parents reject her.

“I’m working on her,” she replies. “Soon she and my father will see you maybe not as Glenda, but maybe as Glenda’s good witch-friend from the east.”

Alex smiles and gives her a quick peck on the cheek. She gets ready and a bit later Francesca’s car pulls up in the driveway. Alex promises to be back in an hour or two. Piper closes the door behind her and watches as they pull away, with Alex’s cousin waving at her out the window.

“Francesca is a saint,” she mutters to herself. If they managed to get actual jobs Piper makes a mental note to thank her profusely. It’s been a long time since someone has stuck their neck out for her and not wanted anything in return.

She picks up her phone and prepares herself to speak to Carol Chapman when the doorbell rings. Piper startles. Probably one of her brother’s or Neri’s friends who didn’t know they were away for the weekend. She goes back to the door and is even more startled when Carol is there.

“Piper, hi,” says her mother. She gives Piper her taunt smile. “Cal called and mentioned that you elected to stay home instead of camping. I thought I would stop by.”

“Um, yea, sure, of course. Come in,” Piper fumbles out, stepping aside and letting her mother in.

“We weren’t really in the camping frame of mind,” Piper offers. “Just wanted to have a day to relax. Alex is out visiting with her cousin.”

She doesn’t miss her mother’s raised eyebrow when she says ‘we,’ as though she’s still surprised that Piper is part of this particular ‘we.’

“You’re doing all right then?” her mother asks with forced enthusiasm that Piper also doesn’t miss.

“Oh, just dandy,” says Piper. “We’ve been job searching.”

“Oh good,” says Carol in the same tone. She pulls out the folder that’s been tucked under her arm and waves it in Piper’s face before setting it on the table.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Her mother takes a seat and Piper feels her eyes rolling up in her head before she can stop herself. Her mother doesn’t notice.

“Your father has been diligently talking to some of his old business acquaintances and while it’s been trying, let me tell you,” says Carol with her own dramatic eye-roll, “I think we’ve found a good secretariat position for you at the Chase Bank downtown. They’ve just done a remodel and it looks fantastic. I can practically put on my makeup looking at the glass wall.”

Piper wants to roll her eyes until they get stuck in her skull.

“Mom, this is kind of something I’d like to do on my own.”

Carol flicks her comment away with her wrist.

“But this is practically a done deal, honey. And I hear that the new Macy’s in the mall has some very nice suits that would be perfect for working in. Now I know you hate miniskirts,” Carol interjects just as Piper’s mouth opens to form words, “but there’s plenty of nice pant-suits there too. And if anyone asks about your recent job history after you’re hired, you can just tell them you’ve been sorting out your options and waiting for the right job path.”

“And what about Alex?” Piper blurts out. She meant to navigate this meeting with more care, try not to antagonize her mother, but Piper is so tired of this.

Carol blinks up at her, face blank.

“What do you mean?”

Piper pinches her lips together in a tight line. “Exactly.”

“Well Piper, I’m sure Alex is more than capable of finding a job for herself, isn’t she? You just said you were job searching.”

Piper sits down stiffly across from her mother. She splays her hands out on the table.

“Mother, I am not getting a job as a secretary because of daddy’s bribery skills while _my wife_ gets a retail job the honest way. It may not pay half as good and it may not be fucking ideal, but it’s something we’re doing together and on our own, okay?”

Carol gives her a disapproving frown, squaring her shoulders and sighing.

“A retail job, Piper? Really? And where exactly is it you two plan on working?”

Piper leans back in her chair, crossing her arms and gazing defiantly at her mother. She pictures herself loading cannon balls into the cannon and taking aim. But her voice isn’t as strong as she wants.

“Easy Mart.”

Carol lets out a sound that’s a mix between a bewildered laugh and something just as derisive.

“Jesus, mother, what did you expect?” Piper blurts out again. “I’ve been in _prison._ And not even daddy’s “bargaining skills” can hide that fact.”

She air quotes the phrase dramatically.

“But Piper, Easy Mart is a terrible place to work at,” her mother almost hisses at her, as though she’s discussing something dirty. “Even before you went away there’s been reports of rampant sexism and unfair pay.”

“And that’s different than the majority of every other working-class job how, exactly?” Piper blinks back at her. “And I should expect to be treated so much better if I’m wearing a fancy pants suit? I should be treated like I have money, is that it?”

Carol is shaking her head.

“Piper…I just want to see you succeed. You have a clean slate, a chance to start over. And I know you love Alex and she…loves you. But have you ever stopped to think, really and truly, if marrying the person who manipulated you and put you in jail is the same person you’re going to put your trust in for the rest of your life? You’ve already made so many mistakes, honey. I don’t want to see you make any more.”

Piper sucks in a sharp breath. Her retort sticks painfully in her throat.

“It’s not like that,” she says, so very softly. “She’s changed. I’ve changed. I’m not the person you want me to be.”

Her eyes drag themselves up to Carol’s face. Her mother is looking at her with genuine concern now. Piper doesn’t say anything else. Her chest is burning and she’s biting back tears because it’s true, she’s not the person her parents wanted her to be and because the truth of the statement is written all over her mother’s crestfallen face.

“Well,” says Carol finally. She gathers up the papers and puts them back in the folder, rising from the table. “Just know your father and I love you. But if that woman ever does anything to hurt you again I’ll have her thrown in jail myself.”

“Get out,” Piper grits between her teeth. Her hands have become fists under the table. She’s staring at the grains of wood on the table top even as they blur together with the liquid rising in her eyes. Her mother doesn’t move for a moment. Then she turns and Piper listens to her footsteps to the door. It opens and shuts with finality.

She remains sitting, pressing her nails into her fisted palms until it hurts. The tears spill over and down her cheeks and she wipes at them angrily. Why the fuck couldn’t her mother just understand? Why couldn’t she accept Alex? And why did it hurt so bad to disappoint them yet again, and maybe, she thinks with a sinking feeling, for the last time?

She couldn’t blame her mother if she never contacted her again. She is a fuck-up. A thirty-three year-old fuck-up with exactly one good thing in her life: Alex. And her parents couldn’t even see that. She pulls up her long-sleeved shirt and looks down at the swastika on her arm. She imagines she can still feel it burning her skin, making her itch.

She jumps a little when her phone rings from the kitchen counter. The ringtone is one of the songs Alex had written down for her on her last birthday, her personal mix. It jars with her mood. She goes into the kitchen and picks it up. It’s Alex.

“Fuck.”

Piper quickly dries her eyes and takes a few breaths before answering.

“Hey,” she says brightly.

“Hey babe,” comes Alex’s voice. Her voice is bright but also a little forced. “So Francesca says we might have to wait a little longer for interviews, but she said they definitely have hired convicted felons in the past who have worked out so we have a good chance. Isn’t that great?”

Piper swallows the rocks in her throat. “Yea, yea, that’s amazing.”

“So she’s invited us over to her house with a few friends as a kind of pre-celebratory thing. What do you say?”

“Oh, um, actually…”

Piper’s throat threatens to close up. She digs her nails into her palms again, searching for strength.

“Actually my mom is here. She wants to stay for dinner, unfortunately,” she tags on for good measure.

“Oh,” came Alex’s voice, dampened now. “Hey that’s ok,” she says after a beat. “You should spend time. If you want to, that is.”

“Yea, I probably should,” Piper replies, trying not to grit her teeth and trying miserably to add the right amount of regret into her voice.

“You sure you’re okay?” asks Alex. “You sound a little…I don’t know. Off.”

“No, it’s all good,” says Piper. “I’m just trying to fix a sandwich and trying to drone out Carol’s television commentary all at once.”

A chuckle from the other side of the phone.

“Okay then. I’ll see you later. I should be back early.”

“Okay.”

“Love you, Pipes.”

“Love you too.”

She ends the phone call and lets the phone slip out of her grasp and clatter on the countertop.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is one of the more angst-ridden chapters. Trigger warning for drug abuse and some regurgitation, if you're sensitive to that. Anyways I needed some good drama between Alex and Piper's mother so there's that too.

Alex checks the time. It’s a little before seven. She’s been hanging out in Francesca’s kitchen, where all the snack food and booze is. All of her cousin’s friends seem pretty cool, though there are a few wilder ones who brought liquor and weed. Alex politely declines their offers, sticking to her beers and eating Chex Mix. On the one hand, it felt good to be doing something as easy and simple as socializing with women who weren’t also inmates, but it also makes her think of her other friends who are still doing time.

She misses their “family;” Red and Nicky and Lorna and Big Boo, whom she’s hasn’t seen since her transfer to an Ohio prison, and she even misses Yoga Jones and Sister Ingalls. Piper has been away from them a lot longer and she wonders if she misses them too. Surely she does.

Her phone rings. It’s Piper. Alex excuses herself into the garage where’s it’s quieter and answers.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Piper’s voice seems to float to her through the speaker. Her speech sounds slurred.

“Shalom and good evening. Where are you?”

“Um, at Francesca’s,” replies Alex slowly with a chuckle. “Where are you?”

“I am on the floor of the living room,” says Piper. She lets out a sigh loud enough for Alex to hear. “I um, I did a bad thing, Alex.”

There’s something in her voice that makes Alex’s muscles tense up everywhere.

“What did you do?”

“I um, I…. _oh fuck_ Alex...”

She sounds on the brink of tears, voice cracking.

“I took some of your pills and I drank a little. Okay, a lot. I drank a lot.”

She lets out a laugh and Alex’s heart is hammering away in her chest all at once.

“You took my Lexapro?” she blurts out.

“Yea…”

“Jesus Christ. Okay. Piper, don’t move. Don’t do anything. And don’t drink anymore. I’m on my way home, okay?”

Piper, when she answers, sounds even less lucid than when she answered the phone.

“Alex, I feel cold and hot at the same time. Is that okay?”

“Piper, I’m coming home right now. Just…stay there. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Alex slams the tracfone shut and rushes back inside the house. She grabs Francesca and tells her the problem. Her cousin quickly agrees to drive her back to Cal’s but once they reach the entrance to the neighborhood they find it’s been taped off to vehicles where they were repairing cracked pavement earlier in the day.

“Shit, I’ll have to drive around the back way,” says Francesca.

“No I’ve got it,” Alex says in a rush. She opens the door and lets herself out in one deft movement. She starts running as soon as her feet hit the ground. Francesca is calling out after her.

“Are you sure? Call me later!”

Alex doesn’t reply, doesn’t even slow down. She’s running as fast as she’s ran in years, down the street and then cutting through the neighbor’s lawns and to Cal’s house. When she gets to the front door it’s locked. Her fingers fly into her pocket and pull out her keys. She fumbles for what feels like ages before she gets the key in the lock and turns it. She swings the door open with Piper’s name on her lips. She crosses the foyer and there’s Piper, on her knees and slumped over the glass coffee table.

Alex rushes over to her, shaking her shoulder.

“Piper. Piper! Hey!”

Pipers groans and raises her head from where it rests on her crossed arms. Her eyes are bleary. She smiles up at Alex.

“There you are,” she says in an almost musical voice.

“Fuck Piper. When did you take the pills?”

“I dunno. A couple of hours ago, I think.”

Her face twists up painfully and she lets out a sob.

“I lied. My mother didn’t stay for dinner. She came here and she…she pissed me off. I’m such a fuck-up Al. You shouldn’t be with me.”

Under normal circumstances Alex would be pissed off that she’s pulling her pity-party-for-one bullshit again but now it hardly registers.

“Piper, I need you get up…no, don’t fall asleep!”

Piper’s head rolls back down onto her arms, eyes closing. Alex shakes her hard and plants her hand under Piper’s arms.

“Up, goddamnit!”

Fear is coating her tone, making her sound harsh. But it works and Piper’s eyes fly back open. She sloppily climbs to her feet with Alex supporting her.

“Come on babe, I need you to make it into the bathroom, okay?”

Piper laughs again and it scares the shit out of her. She asks Piper how many of the Lexapro she took but Piper isn’t sure. Three, she thinks. They make it into the bathroom. Piper leans her whole weight against the doorframe. Alex puts the back of her hand to Piper’s forehead. She’s hot and sweaty, but that’s better than being cold and clammy, she thinks.

“You’re gonna have to puke it up,” she tells Piper, lifting the toilet lids.

“But I hate puking,” Piper mumbles out, childlike. Her face goes from soft to contorted again, like she’s in physical pain and Alex wonder just what in the hell her mother has said to her to make her mix booze and pills. The entire time she’s known Piper and after all the times they got fucked up together, she’s never known her to mix things like this. Anger shoots through her, hot and raw, at Carol Chapman, but she can’t focus on that now.

She helps Piper to the toilet. Piper braces herself with one hand on the side of the sink cabinet, getting on her knees. Alex undoes the hair tie in her hair and fixes it so that all her hair is pulled up. Piper weakly lifts her fingers to her mouth. She sobs again.

“I can’t Alex. I can’t.”

As far as Alex is concerned there’s isn’t any time to argue. She taps Piper’s cheek.

“Open up.”

Piper does and Alex inserts two fingers in her mouth, back and down, until Piper’s throat vibrates and she gags. Her body reflexively spasms and tries to pull away but Alex is holding her jaw firmly with her other hand. Piper’s eyes rolls up into her head and Alex pulls her fingers out just as Piper regurgitates into the toilet bowl, doubling over.

A shaky breath escapes Alex. She blinks at the tears in her eyes, taking off her glasses and dropping them to her side and sits next to Piper, hand on her back. Piper finishes throwing up and retches a few times. She pulls back and half-sits, half-falls against the bathroom wall behind her.

Alex glances into the toilet to confirm Piper’s story and sure enough, she can distinguish the bright white of the pills from everything else. She tears out some tissue paper and hands it to Piper, then twists around and runs a washcloth under the tub faucet and starts wiping at Piper’s face with cold water. Piper is crying now, weakly and quietly with a few gasps for air.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she wails.

For the first time in a long time Piper seems unbelievably fragile to her and it breaks her heart. What worries her more is that Piper was perfectly fine when Alex had left her this afternoon. Whatever conversation she’d had with the elder Chapman could not, by itself, be enough to send Piper spiraling down so quickly, which meant other things had been lurking beneath the surface. But even so there was no doubt in her mind that Carol Chapman had been the catalyst for it.

They stay on the bathroom floor for another fifteen or so minutes. Piper eventually stops crying. She stops sweating as well. Alex takes her pulse on her wrist. She’s no expert but it seems to be healthy, if not a little fast. She helps Piper to her feet again. Piper walks steadily with her to the stairs and up them, slowly. When they reach the bedroom Piper collapses onto the mattress. Alex peels her out of her long-sleeved shirt, noting that she’s still wearing them even in the house, and takes off her pants and pulls out her hair tie. She tries getting her to climb under the covers but Piper just moans in protest, her body like dead weight. Alex clicks on the bedside lamp and turns off the overhead light. Out of habit she picks up the book she’s been reading and crawls into bed beside her.

She doesn’t read much. She keeps pausing every two minutes to monitor Piper, who has scarcely moved a muscle. She prods her gently, checks the pulse in her wrist again. So far, still good. She is breathing okay but Alex remains on edge. Sometime after midnight Piper finally rolls over to Alex’s side and shifts her arms and legs, curling them up as she would normally and Alex finally lets out a breath of relief.

She turns off the light and settles down but doesn’t sleep a wink.

*

The next morning Piper seems physically fine, but she’s tired and doesn’t feel like getting out of bed. Alex insisted that she needed real rest anyway. They don’t speak about anything until after Piper has eaten some breakfast in bed, courtesy of some Jimmy Dean that Alex heated up in the microwave. She eats half of it.

“I’m really sorry,” Piper informs her for the fifth or sixth time that morning.

“Broken record much?” muses Alex.

“Permanently broken,” says Piper. The words are heavier than she’d meant them and Alex gingerly sits on the bed next to her.

“You can stop apologizing,” says Alex firmly. “Yes you scared the living daylights outta me last night and you suck for it, _and_ don’t ever do it again, but I know you wouldn’t have done it if something hadn’t really upset you. Either that or,” she added with a smirk, “You re-watched that _I Love Lucy_ youtube video of Lucy crying over and over and you just couldn’t take it.”

That earns her a small grin.

“I would have loved Lucy as my mother,” Piper muses.

She shifts and sits up straighter on the bed.

“She came over after you left. She wanted to talk to me about getting a job as a secretary at a bank, something dad pulled a few strings for. She just assumed it was what I wanted. And she…she didn’t include you in any of her precious plans,” adds Piper with an eye roll. “She basically told me…”

Piper pauses, blue eyes cast downward. She huffs out a sigh. Alex takes her hand in her own, dipping her head to catch Piper’s gaze.

“What?” she prods.

Piper shrugs, her eyes filling with tears that look angry to Alex.

“Nothing. Just that I’m a life-long loser who is fucking everything up. I will always be less than to them,” she grits out, shaking her head.

The raw anger of the night before surges through Alex again. It’s painfully obvious to her that Piper still wants to be the “right” daughter for them, just as it’s obvious that her parents don’t have a fucking clue about understanding their daughter.

“Piper, don’t you, for a second, listen to that bullshit,” says Alex. “Your mother might love you, but she’s got a really screwed up sense of what’s good for you. And she’s fucking dead wrong about you. She doesn’t really _know_ you.”

Piper looks up hesitantly at her through her brows, eyes large and puppy-like. The fragile look vanishes in the next second. She shakes her head again, wiping at the tears on her cheek.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m through with her, with both of them, if they can’t accept me and you. Fuck it.”

She shrugs again, more tears filling her eyes. Alex can see the war going on inside her. She clenches her jaw until it aches. She forces herself to relax enough to hug Piper, kissing her forehead and offering small reassurances, all the while making her mind up about what she needs to do.

“Hey, I’m gonna go out for a walk for a few minutes,” she says when Piper is calm again. “By the time I get back, I want you out of bed and in the shower, okay? You’ll feel better.”

Piper agrees, cracking another joke about wanting to become brainwashed with _I Love Lucy_ re-runs. Taking that as a sign she was going to be okay, Alex leaves her. She stops by the bathroom and opens the cabinet door. Her bottle of Lexapro is there. She does a quick count of the pills and confirms that Piper took no more than three.

She takes her own dosage and then pockets the pills to take with her, just in case.

Alex goes downstairs and waits until she hears Piper get up and goes into the bathroom. When she hears the tub faucet turn on she quickly goes back upstairs and gets Piper’s phone, finding a number for a taxi and makes a call. A few minutes later she is on her way to the Chapman residence.

*

Alex is waiting with crossed arms when Carol Chapman answers the door. She blinks at Alex, taken by surprise.

“Ms. Vause…”

“Can I come in? Thanks,” Alex says roughly, pushing her way inside.

“Is Piper here?” asks Carol, peering outside.

“No. Piper isn’t feeling well,” says Alex flatly. “She’s pretty upset.”

Carol shuts the door.

“I know,” Carol starts. “It wasn’t at all how I’d hoped that visit would go. I…”

Alex holds up her hand, halting Carol’s next words. She pushes her glasses up on her head. Despite her anger she feels knots of anxiety in her stomach and reminds herself that she’s here to hopefully make things marginally better and not worse by mouthing off.

“Look,” she begins, “Maybe what’s going on between you and your daughter was none of my business before, but now that Piper and I are engaged, I think it is. Piper isn’t the person you want her to be and she’s never going to be that person. And I know I’m certainly not the person you want for your daughter, but here I am. And I can promise you, no matter what you and your husband may think of me, I’m ready to commit everything to Piper. I’m not looking to get her sucked back into drugs or any of that shit again. We’re looking to start over, but it has to be on our—on _her_ \--terms.”

Alex pauses, heart pounding. Carol is looking at her with…a glimmer of understanding? Nothing that Alex had repeated in her head on the way over here was coming out the way she’d hoped, but it was close enough. She went on before Carol could do little more than open her mouth again.

“And Piper loves you,” she said. “She really, really wants to make you proud, no matter how much of a bitch she can be. Sorry,” she adds delicately and with a shrug, but Carol just raises her eyebrows and pinches her lips together as if to acknowledge her daughter’s silver-tongued shortcomings. Alex sucks in a breath and goes on.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you want her in your life you’re going to have to start accepting things. And that’s not a threat,” she adds hastily, aware of how it sounds. “That’s me noticing just how fed up Piper is with…everything. So yea.”

She crosses her arms again and waits. At first the older woman looks as though she’s about to argue, but then she simply sighs. It sounds long and weary to Alex.

“You’re right.”

Alex startles slightly. The words haven’t come from Carol but from Bill, Piper’s father, who is standing on the stairs behind them. He walks down them slowly, hands in the pockets of his well-pressed slacks and Alex knows he’s been standing there for a while.

“She’s right,” he says again, this time to Carol. The two exchange looks before Bill looks to Alex. The tension in the air seems to have deflated a little with his words. Carol tucks her hair behind her ear and for once doesn’t seem to want to carry an argument. Bill extends his hand to her.

“Bill Chapman. It’s about time we met, don’t you think?”

His eyes are blue like his daughter’s and somehow Alex can read a tentative welcome in them, the way she can sometimes understand Piper when she looks into her eyes.

“Yea, I guess it is,” Alex says, softening her voice and accepting his handshake. “Alex Vause. Nice to finally meet you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A holiday update for you guys, with my favorite prison mother and daughter. :) And a big thank you to everyone who's left comments thus far...you have no idea how much I appreciate them.

Piper emerges from the bathroom, showered and dressed and feeling a little better. She sits down in front of her dresser and opens a small wooden jewelry box with a glass top, something Neri had given her. There’s not much in it yet, but there is one item in particular that Piper needed a safe home for. She picks up the little silver key ring and slides it on her ring finger. She turns it slowly, lips curving into a smile as she remembers Nicky’s words that day:

_Do you, Piper, accept this key ring from Luscheck's key chain he was using to hold a Duane Reade savings card as a token of Alex's eternal appreciation and love?_

I do.

_Then, Alex, please slide that fucker on there._

Her smile turns into a chuckle and suddenly she misses Nicky enough for her chest to ache.

The door downstairs opens and shuts and she hears Alex announcing that she’s back.

“Up here,” yells Piper. “I’m so fresh and so clean,” she adds.

A minute later Alex rounds the corner into the bedroom.

“Hm, Outkast?” she asks.

“Good for you,” says Piper, brightening as Alex’s form fills the doorway.

“I secretly loved that song for like, two months,” says Alex.

She walks over to Piper and Piper wants to melt at the way Alex looks at her back, gently stroking her fingers through her still-damp shower hair.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

Piper considers before answering, shrugging.

“I’m…ok. The shower helped.”

Alex looks down at the ring and gives a lop-sided smile.

“I think we may need to resize that.”

“Huh. And what about your paperclip ring that you kept inside your bra for the last seven months?” Piper asks. “Surely that little thing pressed up against your boob has no doubt mangled it.”

Alex snorts. She walks over to her top dresser and digs through it before pulling out the object in question. She holds it between a finger and thumb and presents it to Piper, then slides it on her own ring finger. She’s bent it to where it now fits perfectly. Piper guffaws.

“Not fair! I can’t bend the key ring,” she whines.

“I wonder what the clerk at the jewelry store would do if you asked him to re-size it for you,” Alex smirks.

Feigning indignation, Piper pulls out an empty necklace from the jewelry box and threads her prison wedding ring through it. She lets Alex clip it behind her neck.

“Good solution,” Alex concedes. Piper smiles with extra flair but it fades too quickly. Alex sees the shadows come back to her eyes. Just as she begins to worry that Piper’s parents have flaked out, Piper’s phone rings. She reaches over to where it sits on the bed and gives a pained look when she sees the caller.

“Shit. It’s my fucking _mother_.”

“Why don’t you answer it?” Alex says before Piper can refuse the call. “I’ll be in the shower,” she adds without waiting for a response. Piper pouts but answers the phone.

“Yes mother.”

Her tone is still full of hurt and resentment, but Alex is hopeful. She gets into the shower and lets her hair soak under the spray. She reminds herself again that she is safe and that no one is coming to break her arm or try to kill her. The water temperature is too perfect for her to truly be on edge though, and after she cleans herself she closes her eyes and relaxes as the water runs over her. She zones out and when she finally turns off the showerhead her fingers are completely pruned.

When she steps out of the tub she jumps. Piper is standing there, tears streaking her cheeks.

*

She doesn’t mean to startle Alex as she steps out of the tub but she simply can’t wait. She has to know.

“Whoa there,” says Alex, sighing and then giving her a little smile. The smile vanishes when she sees Piper’s tears. Piper’s chest aches, but it’s not a bad ache. She wipes at her cheeks.

“I’m ok,” she says. “My mother called to apologize.”

She pauses and waits for Alex to speak. Alex’s face is blank.

“Huh. For what?” she asks, and Piper can see through the forced nonchalance in her tone. She smiles a little.

“For…everything. Ever since I went away. She said she was sorry for failing to try and understand me, what prison did to me. And dad…he was listening too.”

She tears up again, like a leaky faucet that can’t be turned off. Alex has wrapped a towel around her but she hasn’t moved away from the tub. She watches Piper and Piper doesn’t miss the tiniest show of a dimple as Alex’s lips curve up ever so slightly.

“It was the most sincere I’ve heard her since I was a child,” Piper continues, coming toward Alex until they are inches apart.

“And both of them also apologized for not understanding my relationship with you, and for not caring about you. I think…I think my mom was crying.”

Alex looks at her, gaze like the edges of the softest feather, her hair soaking wet as it drip-drip-drips onto the towel.

“Wow. That’s something,” she says.

Piper reaches up and pushes her hair behind a shoulder.

“You talked to them,” she says. The wonderment fills her voice and she doesn’t care. “What did you do?”

“I…may have gotten a taxi and went to their house,” Alex confesses. “But I promise I didn’t go all Kathy Bates in _Misery_ on them. Well, maybe just verbally.”

She quirks a smile, as if this was just a typical, run-of-the-mill thing she’s done, getting through to Piper’s parents at last.

 _At last._ At last, Piper heard the voice of the mother she’d missed for so long, the mother that truly wanted what was _right_ for her daughter, not just what was “best.” She heard the voice of the mother who was finally ready to listen, to accept. And her father…her father had called her ‘Pipes’ for the first time in years.

She feels like she could explode like a grenade filled with glitter and confetti instead of explosives. The world seems to tilt on its axis (or just in the bathroom anyways) as she stands there and cups her fiancé’s face in her hands.

“Hey, babe…” Alex starts, feather-toned again and maybe a little contrite sounding as her eyes dart away for a second.

Piper’s not sure if ‘thank you’ is appropriate here. Or ‘you didn’t have to do this,’ but the grenade inside her chest is full to bursting.

“So, these are happy tears?” Alex offers, brushing a thumb over her salty cheek. A small laugh scuttles over Piper’s lips, breaking her tension.

“Yes, dummy,” she says. She pulls Alex into her embrace, fingers weaving themselves into wet hair at the base of Alex’s skull as she breathes in her shower-fresh scent. Alex’s arms automatically enfold her.

“I’m glad my scheme worked,” Alex says into her ear. Her baritone voice makes Piper feel safe in this moment; safe and cared for. She pulls back and kisses Alex tenderly on the lips, putting all her ‘thank yous’ into it. The towel around Alex loosens in the back and Piper removes her arms, letting it fall to the floor. Alex doesn’t move to pick it back up. Piper presses her against the tiled wall and kisses her again, tongue pushing up against Alex’s lips. Alex parts them and hums deep in her throat.

Everything feels new again. _Alex_ feels new again. Piper feels Alex’s jaw line, tracing it with feather-light fingers that trail down the curves of her neck and to her shoulders.

 _I will never hurt you again. I will never be selfish with you._ She adds this new line to her old mantra. Alex deserves everything Piper can give her, and Piper feels more than ever the desire to give to her, without the heavy tethers of guilt attached. She kisses Alex over and over, demanding, and Alex responds in kind. She brings Piper’s hands to her breasts. It doesn’t take long before Alex’s chest is heaving and her breath is heavy when they part for air. Piper moves a hand down between her legs. As soon as she touches Alex, Alex thuds her head against the tiling, eyes sliding closed. Piper doesn’t rush. She kisses her fiancé’s exposed neck methodically. Alex’s hands are restless, curling into Piper’s hair here, moving along her shoulders there, and up under her shirt. Then she whispers to Piper, “I want to taste what you taste like.”

Without looking up Piper can sense the smile on Alex’s lips. Her words—an echo of Piper’s own from so long ago—shoot through her like an arrow, its tip filled with an elixir instead of poison. She groans out loud and takes Alex by the hand and into the bedroom.

They fall onto it, with Alex underneath. The grenade in Piper’s chest keeps exploding over and over again and she wants Alex to feel it, to know that it’s her who controls it.

It’s her that pulls the pin.

She goes to work, stripping Alex apart piece by piece, until she is a wreck under her, body little more than responsive nerves, heated and flushed and begging even though Alex is still the quieter of the two of them. And when she has Alex trembling, ready to fall over the edge, Alex half-mutters, half-moans Piper’s name. It’s not teasing or playful but needy as fuck. Piper strips away the final piece and Alex’s breath hitches a final time before she lets out a keening sound.

Piper slows down her tongue and her fingers, still caressing her as Alex lets out a sigh like everything is in its perfect place, her breathing coming down. For the first time in a while neither one of them speak afterwards. Piper gets lost in Alex’s gold-flecked eyes and Alex smiles at her.

“Now that’s what I call a calorie-burning session,” she quips at last.

“Mmm. Amazing they don’t have infomercials for calorie-burning sex on tv,” Piper replies.

“I think they indirectly work it into some of those sex toy programs,” says Alex. And then they fall silent again. Alex actually dozes off even though it’s the middle of the afternoon and Piper can’t help but feel some pride in her skills at that. But she herself doesn’t sleep. Instead she starts planning.

While Alex sleeps Piper gets on her phone and googles ‘east coast beaches.’

*

The day is overcast but still warm as Cal drops them off at the front of Litchfield Max. Piper feels like a fish in the wrong bowl, coming here as neither an inmate nor as Alex’s visitor. But she’s excited to see at least two of their friends.

“Twenty bucks says Red’s found a way to spike her hair again,” Alex says as they stand in line at the security gate.

“Ha. Thirty bucks says she refers to you as Elvira or something,” replies Piper.

They get through security and collect what few items are allowed inside back into their pockets. When they reach the visitation room there’s Nicky and Red, sitting behind the glass, waiting for them. Nicky waggles her eyebrows at them and Red gives her usual curt nod, but both of them are smiling.

Alex sits across from Nicky and Piper lands herself opposite Red. There’s two booths between them, both full with visitors and inmates on the other side. They pick up the fire-engine red phones. Piper plants a palm against the glass and is quite pleased when it’s reciprocated. Red’s brows raise up.

“I admit I’m surprised, Chapman,” she says, an obvious reference to the fact that they are visiting. Piper is so glad to hear the Russian accent she’d grown so used to.

“I get that,” she concedes. “But honestly Red, Al and I have been missing you guys. And it is _so_ so good to see you.”

It’s the truth and Red’s face softens.

“It’s good to see you too, Piper.”

“Well looks like I’m down twenty bucks,” says Piper, making an obvious visual sweep of Red’s hair. She hasn’t been able to dye it since she’s been here, but it looks once again like a ruffled lion’s mane sitting proudly atop her head.

*

“Well well well,” Nicky declares into the phone. “If it ain’t my tall dark Vulcan, back from the real world. Is life outside this cage too much like The Matrix for you or what?”

She flashes her eyes and a grin at Alex. Alex gives her a lop-sided smile and shrugs.

“Guess I missed your snarky ass,” she says.

“Geez Vause, don’t go all romantic on me so soon,” she announces loudly. “You gotta let me ease into it.”

That earns her a look from Piper, who leans back and frown-smiles at her from across the way. Nicky winks at her before turning back to Alex. She leans back in her chair, crosses her arms, and props a leg up on the counter.

“Hey, leg down inmate!” a CO barks at her from behind.

Nicky rolls her eyes and drops her leg.

“Still making friends, I see,” Alex smirks.

Alex thinks she sees Nicky hesitate for a second or…something, but then Nicky just shrugs.

“Eh. They’re all still assholes but some of them are more tolerable than others. Well so what have you two been up to on the outside? Still doin’ it like rabbits or has that worn off yet?”

She changes subjects with practiced ease. Alex lets her, for now.

“Nope, not yet. And mostly we’re just trying to get jobs right now. Retail, sadly enough, is looking pretty good.”

Alex admits they haven’t gotten as far as wedding plans yet and that they still need to find a place of their own. She mentions tensions between Piper and her mother, and—with permission from Piper beside her—tells Nicky about confronting her mother. Nicky gets a kick out of that.

“Well what about you?” Alex asks at length. “Still clean?” she adds with a raised brow.

“So far,” says Nicky. “But the struggle is fucking real. Red and Lorna help, but uh, I don’t know. This place fucking sucks.”

Under all her bravado Alex can see the all too-constant frustration pent up in her.

“Don’t go limp on me in there, Nichols,” says Alex. “Besides, how will you add to your orgasm collection if you’re too high?”

Nicky lets out a chuckle but it fades too fast. Her face seems to twitch at the mention of being high. She licks her lips and looks as though she’s squirming in her seat before she lowers her voice into the phone.

“Can I uh, ask you something? Junkie to dealer?”

“ _Past_ dealer,” Alex corrects automatically. “And of course. What’s up?”

Nicky’s eyes wonder around the glass pane between them before settling on Alex again.

“You made it through both prisons without hardly any shots. I mean, of all of us, you kept you nose the cleanest. It’s a goddamn miracle, man. How’d you do it?”

It only takes Alex a moment to decipher what Nicky is asking.

“You mean how’d I make it through?”

Nicky blinks and shrugs.

Alex sighs and thinks for a moment. Despite her avoiding eyes and shrugs, Alex knows what she’s asking is dead serious. The scenario of her friend staying in prison for the rest of her life because of drugs is, unfortunately, a possibility.

“I read,” she says at last.

Nicky keeps looking at her expectantly.

“Yea, and?”

“And, that’s what helped me through it. Look.”

Alex leans forward, elbows up on the counter.

“Reading helps a lot,” she continues. “That’s one of the reasons you see so many inmates studying law books. It’s not just to find a way to lower their sentences. It’s a peace of mind, even if you have to force yourself to do it.”

“Seriously? ‘Cause I can already tell you there’s no way I’m reading a fucking law book in here, Vause.”

Alex gives a little shake of head and continues.

“It doesn’t have to be related to the justice system. Anything that you can get interested in.”

Nicky scrunches up her nose, looking lost at sea.

“Ok. What did you like reading as a kid?” Alex tries.

“I dunno, some comics and stuff?”

“What comics?”

“I used to be really into Batman. Hey, did you know there was a gay porn film in the 80s called Dickman and Throbbin?”

“ _Focus_ Nichols!”

“Ok, ok. But there’s no fucking comics in this joint.”

Alex reminds her that she can request books. Maybe not comics, but she can remember seeing a few graphic novels in the prison library there. And, amazingly enough, Alex remembers a Batman graphic novel, called _No Man’s Land_ , she stumbled across when she was younger.

“It’s actually really relatable to being in here,” Alex says, remembering more details about the lengthy graphic novel as she’s talking. She gives Nicky an overview of what she recalls. It was almost a post-apocalyptic story. A massive earthquake ruins all of Gotham City and its citizens and the heroes all have to figure out who’s who and how to work together. She even remembers how the city was divided up into sectors, with gangs ruling each sector. That part finally seems to snag Nichol’s attention.

“No shit,” she chimes in with more interest.

“If you make yourself invested in it, get carried away with it, it can help,” Alex finishes, feeling rather validated at the moment.

“I’ll give it a whirl,” says Nicky. But then a shadow falls over her face, the nervous, fidgety Nicky just underneath it.

“Hey uh, Alex, I…gotta ask a favor.”

Alex can’t quite pinpoint why this statement immediately sets her on edge but it does.

“Okaaay…” she drawls out slowly.

Nicky hunches up to the glass, lowering her voice again, dark eyes flashing with some hidden meaning at Alex.

“So as you well know, there’s candy floating around in here. And me, I’m not eating any,” Nicky adds quickly and pronouncing each syllable as though she’s speaking to a five-year old but Alex knows what she means immediately. “But,” she continues as Alex feels something leaden growing in her chest, “the stuff just seems to find me. I’m like…like a fucking candy store tryin’ to close for business, you know? And I tried really, really hard to tell the guy in blue I wasn’t interested, but he’s insisting he needs me to sell it.”

Alex’s eyes are darting around the room now, looking at no less than four blue-uniformed Correctional Officers around them.

“Nicky, no.”

Nicky’s face pinches together. She squeezes her eyes shut as if this is physically painful for her and holds her palms up, pleading.

“Alex, please, just listen. If I don’t get rid of the candy for my _friend_ (she grits the word out like she’s just tasted gasoline) then he’s gonna be really mad. Really, really mad, Alex.”

Nicky isn’t breaking her gaze at Alex now. It takes Alex only a few seconds to read into Nicky’s words, to see something approaching raw fear in her eyes, just behind the desperation there. Rough translation: If Nicky doesn’t sell the drugs, she’ll get hurt, one way or another. Alex sucks in a sharp breath, her jaw going tight. She can once again feel the sinister tendrils of his place snaking their way towards her again.

“Fuck. _Fuck_ Nicky!”

The pained look returns to Nicky’s face.

“Fuck, I know. I know, Alex. If I had someone else to ask I fucking would, all right? But…my ’friend’ over there…”

For the first time Nicky indicates why she’s so heavy on the code words, jutting a thumb over her left shoulder. Alex follows it to where none other than CO Hellman stands, arms crossed and looking right at them. Alex never spoke to him inside; he wasn’t one of the guards in her cell block, but she remembers him and stories of his dirty dealings well enough. Of course he probably scouted the prison, looking for inmates he either recognized as junkies, or he’d snooped through their files.

“My ‘friend’ over there saw your name on the visitation list just two fuckin’ days ago,” Nicky finishes. “And he found out you used to sell candy.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Alex hisses into the phone, ducking down so Hellman can’t see how pissed she is. “I can’t do this, Nicky! I just fucking got out of here!”

“Well you can just ditch the H and just give me some cash for it then,” Nicky suggests, brightening at her own idea. But Alex shakes her head. She’s practically a ball of nerves now. She’s acutely aware that one of the other CO’s, at any moment, could come marching up to her and get her into trouble for even talking like this over the phone.

A laugh bubbles up from Piper’s booth. She and Red are laughing over some story Red has been telling her in excited tones for the last several minutes, long enough for Piper to apparently have missed all of her and Nicky’s conversation. Piper’s laughing now, oblivious to the crisis happening a few feet away. Alex decides it needs to stay that way. Talking even lower into the phone now, she says to Nicky, “I don’t have that kind of money anymore. I’d have to sell it.”

She’s surprised at how flat and emotionless the statement sounds to her own ears. What. The fuck?

Nicky lights up again.

“So…you’ll do it?”

Alex’s anger, sharp and piercing, returns at her eagerness.

“If it means keeping you from getting fucked up, then I guess I have no choice,” she hisses out, the venom in her tone aimed at herself as much as it is Nicky for agreeing to this. Nicky immediately looks down, brows knitted together.

“I’m really fucking sorry,” she says.

Alex bites her tongue for several long seconds before saying softly, “I know you are.”

They only have a few minutes left, and they’ve already gotten permission beforehand to switch booths. Alex gives Nicky what she prays is a meaningful stare before switching places with Piper. Nicky won’t tell her anything, Alex knows. But _Christ_ , now she has to talk to Red like nothing is going on. It feels like a betrayal-- _is_ a betrayal—and it’s hard to keep it buried as she and Red talk. She tells Red she’s just a little tired from job searching and getting used to being on the outside again. Red buys it all too quickly, mostly just happy to be chatting. Alex forces herself to focus as Red tells her her own woes about missing out on seeing her grandchildren for the first time after attacking Frieda and getting sent to SHU.

Blessedly a guard informs them their time is up a few minutes later. Alex meets Nicky’s gaze after she says good-bye to Piper. As soon as Piper turns away Nicky gives a nod over her shoulder at Hellman, aimed at Alex. Hellman catches it and moves to walk through a connecting room and to the visitor’s side.

Alex whirls to face Piper and, on instinct, says, “Hey, I gotta run to the little girl’s room before we leave. I’ll meet you outside.”

It comes out perfectly natural and Piper nods and agrees. As she walks towards the doors CO Hellman enters the room. As she’d predicted, he meets her eyes just long enough before giving a discreet nod towards the short hallway that contains the restrooms. He strolls back there, thumbs in his belt.

Alex hates him. She hates this place and hates what’s it’s doing to people she still cares about. She wants to hate Nicky but can’t.

She strides back into the hallway, feeling like the Alex of old, about to go into a club bathroom or to someone’s car. She glances around the visitation room casually before meeting Hellman just outside the restroom door.

And Hellman’s definitely done this before. She’s almost not quite ready when he wordlessly walks into the restroom. She follows. Seeing the stalls empty, he pulls out a thick, well-wrapped plastic brick from inside his pants leg and hands it to her. He keeps one hand pushed firmly against the door just in case.

“I need $1,000 for it. I don’t care how or who you sell it to. Can you move it by the end of the week?” he asks, finally looking at her directly.

Alex stutters stupidly, brain racing to remember what day it was. It was Wednesday. Fuck.

“Y-yea, I think so,” she stammers out.

“Make it a ‘yes,’ and we’re good to go,” he says. He hands her a piece of paper with a phone number written on it. He’s giving her that flat stare, meant to intimidate. Alex stands taller and says with more confidence, “Consider it done.”

 _You fucking idiot_.

Hellman nods, looking satisfied, and leaves the room. Alex stands there dumbly for a second, then darts into a stall and locks the door. She racks a hand through her hair, hands starting to shake.

“Oh shit, oh fuck.”

_Get a fucking grip._

She should just rip open the package and flush it down the toilet. The part of her brain she guesses is the rational part tells her this. She could do that and find some way of coming up with the cash later. But even as that idea forms Alex knows it’s useless. How the fuck could she produce one grand? She’d have to ask Piper for it. And even that would be pointless, because she’d have nothing to purchase to show for it, no excuse whatsoever that Piper would buy. She’s fucked.

 _Should'a seen this coming_. She sneers darkly at her own morbid sense of humor.

Alex reaches down and unzips her boot. The brick bulges a little in it but also proves to be malleable, bending to her leg. Luckily Alex isn’t wearing anything quite as snug skinny jeans today and when she tugs her pants leg over her boot it’s not noticeable. Fuck.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'll be out of town for the next few days so here's an update, which includes the most awkward dinner with Piper's parents and Alex I could come up with. Let me know what you think. <3

She tries to calm her nerves as Piper drives them back, wanting to stretch her “driving legs.” Cal sits in the back. Piper is chatty. Alex can tell that seeing their friends has put her in a good mood. It makes her ache warmly to see Piper smile so much, voice and hands animated as she recounts her conversation with Red. It’s obvious she didn’t overhear anything suspicious from her and Nicky’s conversation. The warm ache disappears from her, ruined by darker thoughts.

The heroin is pressed up against her ankle and her skin is sweaty where it touches her, a constant reminder of what she’s doing.

It’s made even worse by Piper’s cheery mood. She starts talking about their wedding, asking Alex too many questions right now about where they have it (absolutely not a church), and who would be getting their last name legally changed. Alex hears all of it as if she’s far away, her mind whirling in a different direction.

“Um, whichever you want babe,” she responds with forced lightness about the name thing.

“Honestly I don’t think I like my last name as much,” says Piper, blissfully oblivious to Alex’s lack of thought to her answer.

“Badison kind of tainted my name with the whole ‘Gapman’ thing,” Piper continues.

At this Cal leans forward from the backseat and asks who Badison is. Alex secretly lets out a sigh as Piper shifts her focus to recounting to her brother the story of how Madison Murphy tripped her on purpose and broke off her tooth. She is trying not to sit up too straight or to fidget. The sooner she can get the fucking brick off her body the better.

At last they’re back at Cal and Neri’s. While Piper goes to pee she whisks herself into their bedroom and snatches the tape dispenser sitting on the computer desk. Her hands are trembling as she pulls the heroin out of her boot and slaps long strip after strip of tape over it, then sticks it to the underside of her side of the bed. She makes sure it’s secure, then puts the tape back. She’s racking her brain for the best place to sell it and how to get there.

 _Fucking idiot._ She berates herself again. But Nicky needs her for this, as fucked up as it was for Nicky to ask.

Piper emerges from the bathroom and Alex busies herself with taking off her other boot.

“So,” says Piper, “have you figured out what you want for dinner? Your choice.”

It takes Alex a full minute to remember—tonight’s the dinner with Piper’s parents, as part of the grand reconciliation that Alex herself had put into motion.

Alex just manages to stifle a groan and not say ‘fuck’ out loud. Instead she stupidly blurts out, with little thought, “Chicken would be great.”

“Chicken it is,” says Piper with a smile. She picks up her phone and sits down at the computer desk to call her mother. On the bed behind her Alex takes off her glasses and presses fingers to her closed eyes. She hasn’t lied to Piper; hasn’t actually done anything yet. Nicky needs her. Yet her own vowels to Piper come back to her, heedless of her reasoning:

_There was a time when I hurt you. And I did something unforgivable. And I don't think that I can express, in words, the guilt and regret that I feel for having done that to you, the person that I care about most. So, my promise is to make it up to you every day. In small, quiet ways..._

She swallows hard and tells herself she’s not hurting Piper and that everything will work out.

*

“You okay?”

“Yea. Just a little anxious, I guess.”

It’s the second time Piper has asked Alex how she’s doing since they got in the truck. Now they’re pulling into her parent’s driveway and Alex _seems_ fine, but Piper notices the way her jaw is tight. Her eyes dart around more than usual. But this is a big deal for all of them and it’s perfectly understandable that Alex is nervous. She admits to herself that she is too, mostly afraid that somehow this event will backfire and that someone—her mother most likely—will say something to ruin it. And deep in the pit of her stomach Piper is prepared for just that, if need be. As they walk to the door—with Cal and Neri here too—Piper is ready to choose Alex over her parents. That she’s even considering such a decision hurts, but she can no longer imagine a life without Alex.

It’s her dad who answers the door. He’s smiling and opens his arms and Piper hugs him. Her mother is just behind him as they all file into the house. Piper smiles hopefully as both her parents greet Alex with more warmth than she could have hoped for. Whatever conversation the three of them had when Alex had made her surprise visit, it certainly seemed like it left an impression on them.

They sit down in the living room while her father finishes preparing dinner.

“A man who cooks. I like it,” Alex quips, looking to Carol. Her mother launches into the story of how she found out that Bill Chapman cooked and Piper relaxes a bit more. Whatever anxiety Alex had earlier seems to have evaporated. Piper discreetly shuffles her hand over to Alex’s leg, where her hand rests just on top of it and rubs a finger there. Without breaking eye contact from her mother, Alex slides her fingers into Piper’s.

A ridiculous wave of something like euphoria washes over Piper in the moment. It’s a tiny thing, touching her fiancé’s hand on her parent’s couch (and still not too openly), but it’s more than she ever imagined was possible.

Dinner gets underway soon enough and everything goes as well as can be expected—for a time. Her mother is engaged with Alex but there’s still a coolness to her responses. It’s Bill Chapman who brings up the wedding first, asking if they’ve made any definitive plans. Piper immediately slides a look to her mother, who isn’t looking at any of them but is focused on her baked potato instead.

“Well Piper was asking me this afternoon about our last names,” Alex supplants, “but I don’t think we’ve decided yet.”

“Well whichever name you choose to go with is fine Piper,” her father says. “Or you could decide to keep your last names too.”

For a moment Piper thinks it’s a dig at her giving up her family name, but then he asks Alex her full name and starts talking about the history of the name Chapman. Piper catches her brother’s gaze and he gives her an eye roll. Alex sees it too and they all grin.

And then, in-fucking-evitably, Carol interrupts and Piper feels the old tension returning.

“Honestly there’s nothing wrong with keeping your last name, dear,” she says, looking to her daughter. “In fact, if it’s too much for you girls to handle right now you don’t even have to get married.”

“Why would it be too much for us to handle?” Piper asks, as calmly as she can. She sits her fork down gingerly and takes a drink of the table wine in her glass.

“Well honey, I just mean, don’t you think you ought to get completely…I don’t know…comfortable with all of this first? It’s not like you’ve ever been with a woman before.”

She hears Cal sigh and sees Alex stiffen across from her.

“Carol…” her father says but doesn’t say anything else.

“I’m only saying,” Carol continues in a soft but defensive tone. “If Piper is going to commit herself to the gay lifestyle, then she should know what she’s getting into…”

“It’s _not_ a lifestyle, mother,” Piper spits out. She closes her eyes. If it were possible to get migraines based on matriarchal stupidity she’d be getting a wrecking ball of one right about now.

“Actually it can be for some,” Alex chimes in. Piper looks up at her, eyes pleading. Alex catches her gaze but then looks to Carol, shoveling in a forkful of chicken.

“I mean, you don’t choose to be gay,” Alex clarifies, “but there’s definitely people in the community who are super flamboyant about it. You know, rainbows and glitter and all of that.”

Piper winces and Alex sees it. Her brows raise in an ‘I’m sorry, I tried’ expression.

“Well there you go,” Carol says, “You’re not going to be that kind of gay, are you honey?”

Piper wants to explode. She feels like a grenade again, only this time it’s definitely the violent one. On some level she realizes her mother is trying in her own fucked up way; she’s acknowledging Alex and the fact that Piper loves her, but Jesus Christ. Like some slow-moving horror movie Piper realizes just how ignorant her mother is.

“You know,” Neri says a little too loudly. All eyes shift to her. “I saw one of those late night shows, and this comic book guy, Matt Fraction, said something that really resonates. ‘You're into what you're into, I'm into what I'm into. We don't have to be into the same shit, and if you're safe, sane, and happy, then go on and get you some.’”

Cal beams at his wife. “Wow babe, that’s actually pretty good. Right? Isn’t that good Pipes? Dad, don’t you think that’s true?”

Cal throws wide eyes to his sister. Across from her Alex is staring at Carol. She quirks a haughty eyebrow at her mother and Piper can’t help but grin, some of her anger dissipating.

“It is true,” Bill says slowly, setting down his wine glass and placing a hand over his wife’s next to him. It seems to irritate her mother more.

“Yes mother, please tell us your thoughts on the well being of people, regardless of their sexuality,” says Piper in that super perky, sardonic voice she knows her mother can’t stand.

“I suppose there’s truth to that,” Carol says. She doesn’t throw her daughter a death stare, so that’s something, Piper thinks.

“I still uncomfortable with this, Piper,” she finishes at length. This time she does look at Piper, but the words are missing their usual mother-knows-best tone, and no platitudes follow it. She looks to Alex.

“Please understand Alex, this is all still very new to me.”

“It wouldn’t have been new if you’d cared while I was in prison,” Piper mutters out without thinking.

“It’s okay, Mrs. Chapman,” Alex quickly jumps in before Piper’s words can hang in the air too long.

Piper glances over to her, surprised.

“I get it,” Alex continues. “Well sort of. I mean, my own mom was pretty cool and open-minded. And it’s okay to be worried for Pipes. But with all due respect, I really think you’re making too big of a deal of it. Love is love.”

Piper can practically feel _those_ words hanging in the air. Alex is looking at her so tenderly Piper wants to melt…but she also seems…anxious again? There’s definitely something shadowed underneath Alex’s gaze, but before Piper can really think on it, it’s her father who speaks again. And he’s got a small smile on his lips.

“Yes. Love is love.”

He raises his wine glass in a toast and everyone follows suit. Piper watches as he looks to his wife patiently but also expectantly. Piper always wonders how taxing it must be for her to plaster on that less-than smile, but to her credit Carol doesn’t argue and simply raises her glass. The tension in the room is taken down several knots and Piper breathes easy again. She looks at her mother and there’s that genuine, sincere look again, the one that matched her voice over the phone earlier. For the first time she understands it for what it is: An apology, for not trying sooner.

Piper mouths a silent ‘thank you’ to her. For what exactly she’s not sure, but her mother is trying, and maybe that’s enough.

The rest of the evening goes on without a hitch. They stay and visit a little after dinner, but Piper can tell something has shifted in Alex’s mood. She’s quieter and seems distracted.

*

The next morning Piper is eager to “surf the net,” as she puts it with huge air quotes. She tells Alex she’s researching for a project but that it’s top secret.

“Maybe, if you’re good the rest of the week, I’ll tell you what it is,” says Piper, her voice low and lusty as she trails an index finger around Alex’s waist line under her shirt. It was sexy, but this morning Alex is too anxious to fully appreciate it. Still she teases back and gives Piper a few kisses before announcing she’s off for a walk.

“You’re really getting into that,” Piper notes. “Maybe you should get one of those fitbit things and start recording how far you walk.”

“I’ll put it on my Christmas list,” says Alex.

Piper’s face lights up delightedly. “Oh my god, we can have real Christmas lists again!”

Alex can’t help but chuckle at her trademark enthusiasm. The idea of real Christmas lists hadn’t really struck her either until she’d said it.

But even that is dampened by her nerves. She leaves the house. The day is overcast and still slightly foggy as she walks to the end of the block and pulls out her phone. She had to look into the yellow pages to get what she hopes are the correct three numbers with the correct addresses. She doesn’t have any luck with the first number; Corbin has moved. The second number she gets lucky.

“Hey Devon, it’s Vause.”

“Vause? As in Alex?”

“Yea…”

“Holy shit! It’s been ages.”

“I know. I got out.”

“No kidding?”

“Yea. Listen, I was wondering if you’re still open for business?”

Alex asks Devon if he’ll be the one to pick her up. She hopes they can just pull over somewhere out of the way and do a quick exchange, but no such luck. He’ll be sending someone else.

She has the lie planned out in her head by the time she returns. She tells Piper Francesca has invited her for a sleepover tonight.

“She’s having guy problems and needs someone to talk to I guess,” says Alex. She hates the sound of her voice as she speaks it and hates it even more when Piper barely bats an eyelash.

“Is that ok?” she adds contritely, realizing it will be the first time they won’t be sleeping together since she’s been released. But Piper takes her hands in her own, playing with her fingers.

“Of course it’s fine,” she says. “It’s good, that you’re spending time with family.”

Alex forces a smile. _No, no it’s not fine. Nothing is fine right now. ___

__She should just tell Piper, right now. Tell her how Nicky cornered her, that she has the heroin. Piper would be mad, but not furious. They’d figured it out together. Her heart thuds in her ears. Piper is turning away from her, saying something about ice cream downstairs. Alex sucks in a breath._ _

__“Hey.”_ _

__Piper turns around. Alex’s confession bubbles up and gets stuck in her throat._ _

__“Back in max, when Madison had it out for you,” she begins instead, “And you went to that CO about the drugs she planted…”_ _

__“Yea…”_ _

__“I…ended up going to Carol and telling her about Madison harassing you. I agreed to work for her if she made Madison leave you alone.”_ _

__It’s the truth, just not the one she wanted to tell. Fuck._ _

__Piper’s eyes widen._ _

__“You did _what_?”_ _

__“I know you didn’t want me getting involved and having Madison on my case, but I couldn’t help it. She was seriously dangerous, Pipes.”_ _

__Piper huffs out a sigh._ _

__“Shit, Alex. Well so was confronting Carol fucking Denning! What if that hadn’t worked like you wanted it to? Carol could have sent Madison after you anyway!”_ _

__Piper’s concern for her over something that happened months ago makes Alex feel weak in the knees. She’s realizes she’s still getting used to someone else acting this way towards her—caring. The dull warmth it makes her feels is tempered by the knowledge that right now she doesn’t deserve it. But at least she can make this right, as small as it is._ _

__Alex lays her hands on Piper’s shoulders._ _

__“I know, but listen babe. I wouldn’t have even tried if I didn’t think I could convince Carol, okay? She might have been the big bad wolf in there, but she was reasonable. She was like countless dealers I’ve met with before. They have the same egotistical personality traits and I know how to work that, okay?”_ _

__Piper is giving her that long look, blue eyes searching Alex’s own, wanting to be convinced. Finally she slowly nods. Alex sighs. It does feel good to get that off her chest. But now Piper looks completely disgruntled again._ _

__“So you’re saying me actually having the balls to tell a CO about the drugs did absolutely nothing?”_ _

__Alex winces. “Afraid not.”_ _

__Piper does the expected indignation routine Alex has grown used to whenever she feels wronged, but there’s no real fire behind it this time and Alex guesses it’s become more of an endearing Piper-ism—a habit—more than anything else._ _

__Two hours before Alex is supposed to be getting picked up by her cousin, she and Piper go downstairs after dinner for the aforementioned ice cream, joining Neri on the couch and watching _Pretty Woman_ on cable. Alex’s focus on the movie wonders in and out. She tries not to keep eyeballing the clock. At last it’s late enough for her to go upstairs and throw together an overnight bag. Piper stays on the couch._ _

__As soon as she’s in their bedroom Alex goes over to her side of the bed and pulls down the brick of heroin. She puts it on the bottom of an old duffel bag Cal had given to Piper and that Piper was letting her use for the occasion. Alex starts folding a few clothes and her makeup bag on top of it. It only takes a few minutes. Then she sits on the bed and does nothing. She’s got this, she tells herself. As long as she can still play the part, that is._ _

__She throws off her current t-shirt and replaces it with a tight black spaghetti-strap top. She goes into the bathroom and adds a few curls to her hair and some lipstick. Nothing too drastic so as not to arouse Piper’s suspicion, but just enough. She eyes herself in the mirror and remembers the way all eyes would turn to her when she entered a room. She remembers how easy it was to slide in seamlessly into any conversation, to take hold of the moment and make an impression, to buy or sell drugs in the blink of an eye. She was so good at it._ _

__“You’ve got this,” she mouths silently to her reflection._ _

__

__“Is it silly to say I’m going to miss you?” Piper asks before she heads out the door a little while later. She’s looking at Alex with puppy-dog eyes and Alex wants to punch herself in the gut. She reaches up and strokes a hand through Piper’s hair, pushing it back behind her ear. But she’s calm, cool, and collected now. In fact, she’s starting to feel the old adrenaline pumping in her veins again._ _

__“No,” she answers. “But I might actually enjoy picturing you pining over me all night. Because I know you don’t want anybody else, and when you think about me you touch yourself.”_ _

__“Oh _Jesus_ Al. You’re the worst.”_ _

__Piper swats at her arm and Alex chuckles. They kiss good-bye and Alex tells her she’ll be back sometime in the morning, probably late-ish. It’s dark outside and her ride is pulled up to the curb across the street, per Alex’s request. Piper has never seen Francesca’s car and it’s too dark to see the driver from this distance. Alex hurries across the street. The driver is a woman who looks a bit older than Alex. Alex can tell just by looking at her that she’s definitely been on the receiving end of some hard drugs before. She’s chewing gum loudly as Alex throws her bag in the backseat and slides in the passenger seat._ _

__“Alex is it?” the woman asks, popping her gum._ _

__“Yea.”_ _

__“Trish.”_ _

__“Hi Trish.”_ _

__“Hey.”_ _

__They say little else during the ride, which is fine with Alex. Trish turns up the CD player in the car and rolls down her window to smoke a cigarette. She offers the pack to Alex._ _

__“Want one?”_ _

__“Sure. Thanks.”_ _

__Alex hasn’t smoked in almost a year but right now she needs it. She rolls down her window and inhales, feeling an instant buzz from it. Unexpected nostalgia hits her. After a few minutes she starts to feel more comfortable, and why shouldn’t she be? She’s so damn _good_ at this._ _

__The thought sticks with her and she smokes another cigarette, enjoying it this time._ _


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry it's been a minute. We're up to the (semi) climatic scene, in which Alex does a bad thing and it's Piper to the rescue. Trigger warning for drug abuse and minor sexual harassment. Let me know what you think. (As a side note I was totally picturing Jessie from Breaking Bad as the guy Alex sells to in this).

Weezer’s _Hash Pipe_ is blasting from the CD player when Alex recognizes Devon’s house twenty minutes later.

She sticks the brick of heroin inside her coat and follows Trish inside. She’s seen the full spectrum of flophouses since she first started dealing, everything from run-down shitholes that smelled like piss to upscale mansions with Jaguars in the driveway. But it’s always the atmosphere that Alex is most concerned about. Kubra made sure that they only dealt with trustworthy people.

As Alex walks into Devon’s, there are groups of people clustered here and there. They all seem relatively laid-back, a few of them laughing. A lot of eyes turn to her as she walks in. She immediately feels the night is going to go her way.

“There she is,” Devon announces, grinning and giving her fist bump, which makes everyone more interested in her. Alex puts on her most charming smile.

“I was gone like five minutes and you’ve turned into a space monkey,” she quips, swiping a hand playfully over Devon’s shaved head.

She’s feeling in her element by the time she’s done with her first beer. Three more follow rapidly before she figures she should slow down. She waits patiently for Devon to ask about the goods. When he does she produces the heroin and he eagerly takes it and pays her the agreed-upon one thousand. Alex knows she should try to leave, call up her cousin for real this time and see if she can’t spend the rest of the night there.

But already Devon is coaxing her back into the living room and offering her a joint. And the truth is it all feels great. A few curious people are around her, asking about prison. The jokes and wit flow out of her like water and soon she forgets the time and settles down on the couch, another drink in her hand.

Piper is never out of her head. She sits in the background of Alex’s mind, dim and blurry. But fuck it. She’ll pay the price of it all tomorrow. Right now it feels too amazing to give this up—the people, the laughs, the buzz from the beer and the weed. She’s in her own clothes in a house and not wearing brown or orange in fucking jail. No one here is wondering what her sins are.

Here, all sins are equal and irrelevant.

It’s shitty comfort and she knows it. But as she French inhales the joint she decides the ‘fuck it’ attitude will work for that too.

*

She hears voices floating around her but she can’t open her eyes and doesn’t want to.

“Dude where’s my phone?”

“Shit, I don’t know, man.”

“Frank was supposed to be here, man. Gotta call him.”

“Dev you are fucked up, man.”

“Fuck off. Where—”

“Hey I bet that’s it over there.”

Someone shuffles close beside her and Alex remembers she’s sitting on the couch. Or thinks she still is, anyway. It’s hard to know for certain because her body feels like it’s perpetually floating, even though she can’t actually _feel_ her limbs at all.

An eye flutters open and she dimly sees the flashing glow of the television and the coffee table in front of her, covered with all manner of junk. Someone—Devon?—is on the phone. Her eye closes again and Alex sighs. She thinks it’s the deepest sigh she’s ever taken in her life. She pictures herself sinking down into couch and disappearing.

“…Just gonna pop this off you, hon.”

The female voice makes her eye crack open again. It’s Trish. For some reason she smiles and laughs as Trish removes the tourniquet from her arm.

*

Piper is only half awake as she registers her cell phone is ringing. She lifts her head and grabs for the small glowing rectangle on the dresser. It’s late. Surely it must be Alex. The screen confirms it.

Piper sits up more and clears her throat as vague wisps of concern seep in her still-groggy conscious.

“Hey.”

“Hey, uh, is Frank there?”

Piper snaps awake, sitting fully up in bed at the intrusive male voice.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Devon Whitman. Asking for uh…”

Someone in the background snickers.

“For Frank,” the guy named Devon finishes. His laugh is spacey and he sounds like he’s on something.

“This is Piper,” Piper says very deliberately. “And you’re using Alex’s phone. Where is she?”

“Oh shit, fuck. Wrong phone.”

More laughter, but it’s not funny. Piper feels her chest and her throat tighten.

“Who the fuck is this?” she demands.

“Hey yea, sorry. Uh, Alex is uh, unavailable right now. She’ll call you back.”

Before Piper can say anything else they hang up. Piper switches on the lamp and immediately dials back.

“What the fuck,” she mutters out loud. She’s swinging her legs out of bed and forcing herself into wakefulness. The phone rings and rings and rings but no one answers this time. Piper dials up Francesca next. It’s after 1am but she doesn’t care. It takes a long minute for Alex’s cousin to answer but when she does Piper’s heart nearly leaps into her throat.

“Francesca! Hi, it’s Piper. I know it’s late, but is Alex there?”

Francesca’s response is slow and it’s painfully obvious the question has caught her completely off guard. No, Alex isn’t there and no, Alex never said she was having a sleepover.

Piper takes in the information. Her mind goes back to the guy calling from Alex’s phone and how he sounded, like he was high. Piper has a fist curled around the edge of her dresser as her stomach does a flip. She apologies again to Francesca and tells her not to worry, everything is fine. She doesn’t have time to explain. As soon as she ends the call Piper goes to the computer and does a search of Devon’s name on the yellow pages. His name appears and she finds an address.

Minutes later she’s thrown on clothes and shoes and is heading out the door with Cal’s truck keys in her hand. She could give a shit about telling him, except at the last minute she realizes the last thing she needs is for Cal or Neri to think the truck was stolen and to call the fucking police. So she jots down a few words on a piece of paper and leaves it where his keys were, then she’s out the door.

 

Piper’s familiarity with the road lasts for about ten minutes, then Google Maps is telling her to turn somewhere she’s never been. It’s night and she takes a wrong turn, cursing. She doesn’t actually know what it feels like when your blood pressure rises but Piper guesses this is fucking close. It’s the same horrid feeling that had come over her the day Pinscatella had broken Alex’s arm in front of her, like she wasn’t literally going to be sick but her body was reacting with revulsion just the same. She has to force herself to focus, to try and read the street signs and to glance down at the map on her phone even though the stupid voice is speaking to her as well.

She doesn’t know what to think and is trying not to. But her mind is frantic and wild. Was Alex there willingly? Surely she’d gotten accidentally mixed up with the wrong people, as they say.

But Piper knows Alex and remembers exactly how Alex had always sought out the wrong people.

She also remembers too clearly how happy she was to follow right along.

When she turns onto the last street the Google voice announces she’ll reach her destination in five hundred feet. The street is empty, save for another car that’s turned on the street from the opposite direction. It’s a police cruiser.

Piper grits her teeth and grips the steering wheel with white knuckles. The car passes her slowly. She glances at the driver. A male. He looks at her and doesn’t smile or nod and keeps driving. Fuckfuckfuck.

_You have arrived at your destination._

The Google voice makes her jump. Piper looks and recognizes the bruise-colored car Alex had left the house in parked on the curb. She looks in the rearview mirror. The police car is still creeping along. Piper drives past the house. The air feels heavy and stale and there’s an invisible snake constricting around her chest. She pulls over and puts the truck in park, gasping for air. The tunnel vision returns. She closes her eyes.

“No no, please not now, not now…” she whispers.

She squeezes her eyes shut and remembers Alex in the mall telling her to just breathe.

Alex.

Alex needs her. Piper’s need to see her all right crawls its way up inside her and she forces air in and out of her lungs as steady as possible. Finally she opens her eyes again. The tunnel vision is gone. Her hands ache from where she’s been strangling the steering wheel. She lets go and lets her body relax for just a minute before pulling back into the street and turning around. The police cruiser is gone, but it’s entirely possible it will be back. She finds an empty space across the street from the house and shuts off the truck.

Her adrenaline slows down as she walks up onto the porch and to the door. It’s quiet inside but the lights are on. Steeling herself, Piper knocks hard on the door. A moment later she hears the dull thud of shoes running down stairs. The door opens and her nose is hit with stale weed. A guy with a shaved head is standing there, eyes glazed over.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Devon?”

“Uh, yea…”

Piper forces a smile, flashing her teeth.

“Hi,” she says sweetly. “I’m here to pick someone up. Alex Vause?”

Devon squints at her as if seeing through a different kind of haze that has nothing to do with the weed and lets her inside.

“Oh yea, you must be that chick I called,” he drawls out, dopey grin on his stupid face.

As soon as she’s in Piper’s insides go tight all over again. There’s people lying and sitting around in various states of consciousness, beer and liquor bottles everywhere. Someone is doing lines off a table. She immediately starts looking for Alex but she isn’t here. Piper’s eyes go to the stairs and she starts up them, yelling Alex’s name. Devon is following behind her.

“Hey, not so loud, yo. I got her awake. She kinda freaked when I told her I used her phone, but I think you should just let her chill here…”

His voice is party-drained and careless and Piper finds herself whirling around to face him, the blood rising to her face.

“Where the fuck is Alex?!”

For the first time Devon looks startled, like she slapped him awake. He fumbles out a gesture into a room as Piper steps onto the upstairs landing. She steps inside. It’s dark except for the blue and white glow of the tv. More people strung out everywhere. There’s no movement except for the far wall of the room, where two figures are sitting against it. One of them is Alex, her head thumped back against the wall. The movement is coming from the man sitting far too close to her, his lips brushing against her cheek and his hand wondering.

“Come on, just relax…”

His hand is down Alex’s shirt and Alex turns away from him, eyes closed and barely responsive.

Piper rushes across the room.

“Get the fuck away from her!”

Her voice is almost deafening in the silence of the room, in both volume and venom. She reaches down and shoves the guy away from Alex. His face contorts in a drugged-up anger.

“Hey, what the fuck, supercunt?”

Piper bends down, hands on either of Alex’s arms. She’s so cold.

“Alex?”

Alex’s eyes flutter, then open wide when she registers Piper.

“Pipes?” she says weakly, and Piper bites back a whimper. Her hands are shaking as she pushes Alex’s hair back and cups her chin, trying to look at her, but Alex shies away and tries to curl in on herself. Piper sees the puncture mark on inside of her arm. Her heart pounds painfully in her chest, tears welling up in her eyes. She quickly chokes them down and picks up Alex’s glasses from the floor next to her and places them delicately on her face again.

“Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

The asshole next to Alex mumbles something and reaches out a hand. Piper violently slaps it away and the guy rolls over, calling her a cunt again.

“I really think she should just chill here, man.”

Devon is standing there, one hand shoved into his pants pocket and the other on the back of his neck. Piper ignores him and very slowly helps Alex to her feet. She wobbles at first, hand darting out to catch the wall behind her. That was a good sign, at least.

“I’ve got you, baby,” Piper whispers to her.

Alex blinks several times, brows knitted together.

“I’m…I’m okay,” she says. Her voice isn’t slurred but it’s brittle glass all the same and it cuts into Piper as she helps her away from the wall.

“Um, see you later Alex,” Devon says stupidly.

Piper angrily shoves him hard in the chest.

“What is she doing here?” she spits out at him, looking hard into his glazed eyes.

“I…she called and said she had some shit to sell,” he slurs out.

It’s the answer that doesn’t surprise her but that she wishes like hell did.

“Stay away from her,” she says through clenched teeth.

She holds on to Alex and pushes by him. Alex gradually seems to be coming around and pulls herself away from Piper bit by bit, so that by the time they’re downstairs and heading for the door Piper can no longer touch her. Alex jerks away from her, bursting through the door and into the cool night air. She puts her hands on her knees and takes a few deep breaths. Relief doesn’t proverbially wash over Piper; it hits her in small drops and is dampened by a thousand other emotions that _are_ flooding through her. Even so, when she touches Alex’s back with her hand and Alex straightens, pushing space between them again and running a hand through her hair dismissively, Piper’s heart clenches.

“Where’s the truck?”

“Across the street.”

Alex shoves her hands inside her coat pockets and crosses the street stiffly. Piper follows behind her, pushing the remote on the truck and unlocking it. She watches Alex go to the passenger side and climb in unceremoniously. Piper stands in front of the driver door dumbly. Alex is looking straight ahead, expression blank. Only when Piper doesn’t immediately get in does she turn to look at her impatiently through the door window.

Piper climbs in and starts the truck. They pull out of the street and onto the main road. A million and one things dance on Piper’s tongue, demanding to be said. They all become torture when she doesn’t and when Alex doesn’t say anything either. The silence becomes a dead weight in the small space of the truck. She glances over constantly at Alex, who resigns herself to slumping against the door, hand on her forehead as though she’s got a headache.

At one point Alex goes deathly still, eyes closed, and Piper’s heart is in her throat again. She reaches out and touches Alex’s arm.

“Alex?”

Alex sucks in a breath at the touch and jerks away again. Her voice is like stone now.

“I’m _fine,_ Piper.”

Piper pulls back and clenches her jaw together as her anger mixes in with relief. She’s gripping the steering wheel tight again and fighting back tears and hating the fact that she’s trying not to cry. When they pull into Cal’s driveway she feels exhausted.

She kills the engine and pulls out the keys but doesn’t move. Neither does Alex. The distant sound of crickets fills the silence for a long minute. The house is as quiet as Piper had left it, all the lights out, save for the lamp light coming from their bedroom that she had left on.

Piper turns to look at her. Alex is no longer slumped against the door. Her arms are crossed tightly around her and she’s staring straight ahead.

“I fucked up and I know it, okay?” she says at last, her tone like a steel shield put up in front of Piper.

Piper lets out a shaky sigh. She’s afraid of letting go of the wheel but does anyway.

“That’s a fucking understatement,” she blurts out. “Jesus Christ, Alex!”

“Can we not do this right now? You don’t understand.”

Piper turns sharply in her seat.

“Don’t understand what? Why you lied to me? Why you called that asshole and went to his house to sell drugs? Or why you decided to get high? You’re right, I don’t understand, Alex.”

The tears are spilling down her face but she’s too angry to really be weeping.

Alex pushes her glasses up on her head, brows knotted together and eyes closed again. Piper knows she’s still high.

“Nicky asked me to sell some H, okay?” she says. “She was desperate. One of the guards was threatening her. I had to help her.”

Nicky. Piper digests this information. It sits unsettled in the pit of her stomach.

“So,” she says at length, “Was this like ‘hey, have a cold one for me,’ except instead of a beer, you decided to shoot heroin for her?”

She can’t keep the venom out of her tone. None of this makes sense.

“Jesus, no,” Alex spits back at her, eyes flashing with clear anger for a second before it fades back into the weary look that was there before. “I didn’t mean to use, okay? That wasn’t—”

She cuts off abruptly and sucks in a breath that sounds more like a choke.

“I’m going to bed.”

Alex opens the door and climbs out. Piper does the same. As soon as they’re inside they climb the stairs to the bedroom. Piper quickly grabs some night clothes from a drawer and takes her pillow from the bed while Alex is still trying to pull off her shoes and shrug out of her coat.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

Piper pauses around from the doorway but doesn’t turn around. For the first time all evening she hears concern edging its way into Alex’s voice. She has to swallow the stone in her throat before she can reply.

“I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“No, come on, don’t do that.”

The steel is gone from Alex’s tone but Piper can’t look at her right now, let alone sleep beside her.

“Good night,” she says instead and closes the door behind her.

*

“Piper…”

By the time Alex has made her body get up and go to the door it’s shut. She wraps her hand around the knob and clings to it, forehead against the wood. Her chest aches and she squeezes her eyes shut but between the lingering effects of the heroin and her own exhaustion she can’t cry.

She leans against the door for long minutes, listening. She hears Piper go downstairs and a few other noises, then nothing. She opens the door and goes into the bathroom. The bright light makes her squint. It’s harsh and grates on her nerves. She washes her face and downs a glass of water in several long gulps. She dares to glance at herself in the mirror but quickly looks away. She pees and goes back into the bedroom. There’s always enough light to see by, courtesy of the window whose blinds are never pulled down.

The digital clock reads 2:45am. Alex takes off her pants and crawls into bed on Piper’s side. It’s just a full size, but now it feels like a king size bed with only her body on it. She lies on her back in the middle of it and starts sobbing.

For some reason the worst part of this entire night is the fact that Piper isn’t beside her.

*

_Two months ago_

Phone against her ear, she stares listlessly at the bumps on the ceiling while her mother asks her question after question.

“…I don’t know.”

“Well honey, I know adjusting must be hard, but you really need to make an effort. At least start looking for a job.”

She shrugs dumbly, as if her mother can see.

“I will. Eventually.”

“What about looking for a car?”

“Eventually, mom.”

“Piper, you can’t just not live your life…”

“It’s not just _my_ life anymore, mom.”

“Honey, Alex will be out in what, two years?”

“Try four.”

“Well…”

Piper sits up on the bed, finally feeling something other than depressed.

“That’s four years, mom,” she says urgently. “She’s my life partner. I said I’d wait for her. I’m not moving on without her.”

The tears sting her eyes.

“Oh honey, you’re not moving on, you’re just living your life. You have to take care of you.”

Piper sneers.

“Mom I’ve gotta go. I’ve got…some stuff. Bye.”

She hangs up the phone, feeling even more miserable. She sniffs and wipes the tears from her eyes. She’s tired of crying, but she’s done it every week for the last month.

It had been easy at first. She was so happy to be out, to be with her brother and to get caught up on everything going on in the world. She was like a little girl again, excited to soak up knowledge like a sponge. But the concept of ‘four years’ slowly and insidiously circled her brain. The more she tried to think about her future with Alex the worse she felt in the present.

She’s beginning to realize how fucking long four years can be and she honestly doesn’t know how she’ll manage that long without Alex.

Cal knocks on the door.

“Hey,” he says through the door, “FYI, Neri’s making those little triscuit things you like for lunch.”

Piper lets out a sigh and doesn’t move from the bed.

“Think I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Pipes?”

Cal pokes his head inside the door.

“Hey, cheer up, Charlie.”

“I miss her, Cal.”

She doesn’t have to specify. Cal gives her a sweet frown and steps the rest of the way inside the room.

“Yea, I get that. But hey, visitation is in a few days again, right?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s not just that…”

As the most jagged of her thoughts push to the surface, Piper wipes at her face.

“Fucking waterworks. Every time.”

She tries to shake it off. Cal shuffles awkwardly closer to her.

“Come on. If you want we can play shrink and patient, like when we were little. Oh! What if _I_ was the patient and _you’re_ the shrink? Psycho-analyzing me would definitely take your mind off things.”

She gives him a half-hearted grin but can’t hold onto it.

“No. I’m definitely the one who needs shrunk. Or…shrinked? Cal, I…”

Fuck.

Cal doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently. Piper looks up at him, feeling like she’s sitting in a confession booth, about to admit her greatest sin.

“I’m always the one who’s leaving. And I left her _again._ ”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this might be my favorite part of this fic, at least in part because there's a bath scene. No spoilers though. As always I love to hear your thoughts. The comments have really kept me inspired.

Piper stares up at the ceiling from the couch. Despite her initial exhaustion she woke after only a couple hours of sleep, the memory of her conversation with Cal drifting into her consciousness.

She’s not angry anymore, not really. As she replays the events of the night in her head she realizes it’s worse than anger. She keeps picturing Alex slumped up against the wall, just—gone, and her heart feels like it’s splitting at the seams. In all the time they were traveling together, Piper never once saw Alex use a needle, or under the influence of something like heroin. They’d smoked a fair share of weed and Piper had done ecstasy with her, but those seemed relatively harmless compared to injecting poison into your veins.

She needs to know what happened with Nicky. The more she thinks about Nicky asking Alex to do something like this the more the anger starts to seep back into her. Selling heroin behind her back was one thing, but Piper knows there’s no excuse for Alex actually using.

Except that Alex has had drug problems before.

It had never interfered with their relationship before, as bizarre as it sounds. Alex had told her the full story of how Kubra forced her into rehab. As much as Piper fucking hates the man’s guts, she knows it was the right thing to do for Alex. But Piper hadn’t been in Alex’s life then. Instead she’d left Alex at the worst possible time and had boarded a plane by herself and flew across the sea to get away from her.

Piper turns on her side on the couch, closing her eyes against the sudden rush of tears. She had buried her guilt and shame at leaving deep, because when she had let herself consider it the pain was unbearable. She’d convinced herself it was self preservation, survival of the fittest.

And surely there was some truth to that at the time. She didn’t want either of them to become junkies, or to wind up dead in an alley somewhere. But she had also let her imagination get the best of her and had used it to justify leaving the love of her life after her mother had died.

Piper is tired of crying but she does anyway. Desperately she wants to go upstairs, fling the door open and crawl next to Alex in bed, to touch her and tell her that she loves her. Alex, she knows, would have none of that right now.

Piper has always thought of Alex as a cat. One of the big cats, like a panther or a leopard (definitely better than a cockroach as a spirit animal). Alex was tough on the outside. She was loyal and devoted, and she only showed her soft underbelly when she wanted to. But if you tried to reach out at the wrong moment, she would bite.

It was why Alex had been so defensive earlier. Piper hates it about her, hates being shut out so coldly.

It only makes her want to comfort Alex even more.

She lets out a whine and a breath of air, flinging the sheets off the top half of her body. She dozes in and out of sleep until morning.

*

Piper goes upstairs a little before ten the next morning. Alex is awake, on the computer in their bedroom. She barely turns her head when Piper says hey. Piper busies herself with grabbing an outfit from the closet for the day. They don’t speak. The same weight that was between them in the truck last night hangs over the space between them now like a wet blanket, too heavy and too suffocating.

Piper takes a shower and heads downstairs. She’s not really hungry and has a small bowl of cereal for breakfast. She talks to Cal and Neri without mentioning the events of last night. When Neri cautiously asks about Piper’s new sleeping arrangements Piper shrugs.

“Just a little disagreement.”

She can feel their eyes on her and then each other but she doesn’t care at the moment. She puts down her spoon and drinks the rest of the milk from her bowl like a kid, not offering further commentary.

An hour later Alex still hasn’t come downstairs and Piper wonders. Surely she must be hungry by now. She goes upstairs and finds the bedroom door still shut tight. She knocks on it gently. There’s no response so she cracks it open. Alex is sitting with her back up against the bed, reading. Once again, she barely registers Piper’s presence.

“Hey,” says Piper.

“Hey.”

“Feel free to come down for breakfast, if you want. There’s donuts.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“So…do you want to talk?”

“Not right now.”

Her answers are clipped and devoid of emotion. Piper feels her jaw tighten of its own accord and has to bite down on a few dozen smartass retorts.

“Fine then,” she says instead. “Cal and I are going to see a movie. Wanna come?”

“No thanks.”

Piper turns and shuts the door without another word.

*

Alex glances up as Piper leaves, expecting to see the infamous Piper Eye-roll to match the irritation in her voice, but Piper’s eyes just look hurt.

She closes the book and angrily tosses it on the floor. Truthfully she’s hungry, but she’s already made the decision not to leave the room except to use the bathroom. She gets up and reaches into her coat pocket. The thick wad of cash Devon gave her is there, rolled up into a ball with a rubber band around it. She wants to deny it to that fucking Hellman, to tell him he’s not getting paid and to leave Nicky the fuck alone or else she’ll cut off his balls. It’s a fruitless fantasy. If she tries anything against him she’ll be endangering Nicky and God knows who else the asshole has under his control in there.

She hates feeling so fucking helpless. She hates the wounded look in Piper’s eyes, knowing that she’s the reason for it. It’s some fucked up instinct inside her that makes her lash out, born of years of having to fend for herself, long before she even met Piper. But Piper is different. She always has been.

_Fucking idiot._

She’s been out of prison for less than a month and she’s already broken her own wedding vows.

She finds a small bag of potato chips in Piper’s drawer and eats them, then curls up into the bed and tries to sleep.

*

They go to the movie but Piper doesn’t pay it any real attention. She nods and makes a bunch of ‘mmm hmm’s’ when Cal leans over and whispers something about the plot to her, only half listening. When it’s over they make a stop for gas before heading home. Alex isn’t downstairs. A sudden rush of panic overwhelms Piper and she wonders if Alex is even home at all.

She goes upstairs. The bedroom door is still shut. She knocks.

“Al?”

Alex is in bed, facing away from the door. She rolls over just enough to acknowledge Piper. Her eyes look bloodshot. Piper sees the empty bag of chips on the nightstand.

“Did you at least get something else to eat?”

“No.”

“You have to be hungry, Alex. Unless…are you sick?”

Alex’s shoulders move on the end of a sigh. She doesn’t roll around.

“No. I’m not sick.”

Piper wants to curl her body around Alex, to kiss her neck and tell her she’s not mad anymore and that she’s being ridiculous but her feet don’t move. She stands there for what feels like long torturous minutes, gripping the doorknob.

“Okay then.”

She leaves but doesn’t shut the door. She makes a ham and cheese sandwich in the kitchen with extra ham and pours a glass of juice. She carries them upstairs and into the bedroom. Alex hasn’t moved. Piper clears off the nightstand and sets the plate and glass down.

“Here.”

Slowly Alex rolls over and sees the food. Piper crosses her arms. Alex looks at her and sighs again.

“What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t starve.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I’m not leaving until you get up and eat something.”

“Look Piper, I’m not ready to talk, okay? I still have to call the prison and tell Hellman I got his money.”

“Fine. But you’re going to eat. And this self imposed time in SHU is over.”

Alex opens her mouth to protest again and Piper is glad to see a spark come back into her eyes. She levels her gaze at Alex and Alex doesn’t say anything, just glowers at her.

“Fine. I’ll eat,” she relents at last, sitting up and throwing off the covers. “Just…don’t stare at me while I do, it’s fucking creepy.”

Her voice is softer and Piper catches the tiny twitch to her lips. She’s so happy she could shout. Instead she nods and goes to the computer and pretends to be interested in something while Alex eats. When she swivels back around in the chair Alex has devoured the sandwich and is gulping down the last of the juice. Piper raises an eyebrow, expression cautiously playful.

Alex pushes her glasses up on her nose.

“Oh fuck off. I have no shame when I’m hungry, okay?”

*

They go for a walk in the park ten minutes from the house. The days are getting cooler so they throw on hoodies. The park is really just a playground with a sidewalk and a lone oak tree, but it’s open and peaceful and currently empty, save for one or two joggers.

“God,” says Alex, looking at the newish play equipment. It’s brightly colored to the point of being gaudy and everything is shaped differently than from when she was a kid.

“Remember when we just had monkey bars and see-saws and that geo dome thing you climbed up? This looks like something from an episode of _Futurama._ ”

Piper takes in the playground.

“Well, now there’s a big box to climb into before you get to the slide. But I don’t see a sand box. Aren’t all playgrounds supposed to have sand boxes?”

“I’m sure there’s a sand allergy now so they can’t have them, along with peanut butter and twinkies.”

Piper looks at her with that adorable wide-eyed naivety that makes Alex giggle and her insides light up.

“There’s a twinkie allergy now?”

Piper gives her that frown-smile and Alex smiles back. The moment is fragile and gets blown away with a gusty breeze. Alex walks over to the merry-go-round. It’s still the same as when she was young; a simple disc-shaped piece of wood with metal poles for pushing. She sits on it and leans her back against a pole. Piper joins her. She lets her legs dangle and gives them a light push with her feet. It revolves slowly, crawling to a stop after one full turn. Piper looks out over the clearing of the park and to the horizon. Alex gazes at her profile and how the softest wisps of her hair brush against her cheek in the breeze. Suddenly everything aches all at once and her glasses are steaming up.

“Fuck.”

She raises them up on her head and wipes at her eyes. Piper’s eyes fall on her and her hand rests itself on Alex’s leg.

“What happened?” she asks softly.

Alex tells her. She tells her how Nicky caught her off guard and how desperate she looked. Alex was convinced she was in real danger. She tells her about the quick meeting in the bathroom with Hellman. Alex pauses, silently begging Piper to at least believe and understand this much.

Piper’s face is shadowed as she stares down at her shoes.

“Damn her,” she mutters of Nicky, shaking her head. Then she looks skyward. “Jesus.”

“Pipes, I don’t think she had much of a choice,” Alex says as gingerly as she knows how.

Piper flashes her that angry look but it goes soft quickly.

“It sounds that way. That fucking place.”

She shakes her head again miserably.

“ But _you_ had a choice. I thought you were dead. For a second time.”

Her voice cracks and Alex winces, feeling rotten and ashamed. Piper lets out a sob and Alex can’t push her away anymore.

“Piper, I am so, so sorry…”

Piper leans toward her as though she might collapse and she does, into Alex’s arms. Alex holds her fast, choking on her own sobs.

“I’m so sorry, it won’t happen again,” she says into Piper’s hair.

Piper sobs against her neck, hands clinging to her hoodie. When she pulls back Alex’s hands soothe the curves of her neck until she’s cradling Piper’s face. Sapphire eyes look into her own and Alex remembers with a jolt the first time she had walked up to Piper in that bar so long ago and had looked into those eyes for the first time. Piper had looked so naive and curious and—she thinks not for the first time— Piper had her right then—hook, line, and sinker.

Piper’s eyes aren’t so naïve anymore but Jesus, Alex could lose herself in them all over again. Piper utters a single word at her. There’s no malice in it, just a rooted need to know.

“Why?”

It was same question she’d been asking herself, of course. Tentatively she twines her fingers into Piper’s and is relieved when Piper curls her own fingers around them.

“I don’t know. I got…caught up in the moment. It just felt so familiar, being around those people again and being, I dunno, in control again, doing what I do best. I got so used to feeling useless in prison. Pretty soon I was a little drunk and a little high from a joint and I just let it go too far. It was stupid and selfish.”

“Yea,” Piper agrees quietly. “But…I think I understand. A little. Alex…”

Alex looks at her, almost afraid at whatever’s on the other side of her name.

“You weren’t put on this earth to sell drugs. You can be good at other things. Do you even realize that?”

It’s not a rebuke and the honesty of the question throws her completely off guard. She looks away, then lets out a small laugh.

“All this liberty has made you too damn perceptive, kid,” she says.

Piper gives her a quiet smile and squeezes her hand. They fall into a comfortable silence. The day is waning and it’s getting colder. They leave the playground and head home. Alex gets an idea that brightens her mood.

“Give me fifteen or so minutes, then meet me in the bathroom,” she says under her breath after they discuss what everyone wants for dinner.

“Oh?” says Piper. “And what will be happening in the bathroom in fifteen minutes?”

Alex just smiles and wordlessly goes upstairs. She feels Piper’s eyes on her the entire way up, which makes her smile more. It feels good.

After she’s completed her task in the bathroom she grabs a piece of computer paper and a pen on a whim.

*

Piper sits down on the couch with Neri to pass her fifteen minutes and it takes only a few of those for her limbs to grow tired, her lack of sleep catching up with her. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that whatever Alex is planning involves sex and Piper isn’t sure she’s up for that particular activity. But Alex must be as tired as she is so she dismisses it. Almost.

She waits an extra two minutes then heads up the stairs. The bedroom is empty but a bright splash of yellow light is coming from under the bathroom door. She raps softly on the door.

“Al? Do I need a blindfold and some bondage rope? Because I’m not sure I’ve got the energy.”

“Come in,” Alex says from the other side of the door, her deep voice as chimey as it ever gets. Piper opens the door. Alex has nothing on except a dark blue towel wrapped around her. She holds a piece of paper up to her. Piper takes it, completely perplexed. It’s a stick drawing of a bath with a shower head and two stick figures sitting in the bath.

“I drew us a bath,” says Alex, as serious as possible.

Piper makes a face and rolls her eyes.

“Really, Al?”

Alex is grinning now. She turns and pushes back the tub curtains, revealing an actual tub full of steaming water, complete with a small touch of bubbles. A pleasant whiff of citrus is coming from the tub. The smell of vanilla also reaches Piper’s nose and she sees that Alex found some incense, too. It’s burning on the edge of the sink.

“Oh, much better,” she says with relief, shutting the door behind her.

Alex raises an eyebrow.

“Yea?”

Piper bites her bottom lip and nods.

“Yea.”

Piper undresses and moments later she’s warmly wedged between Alex’s long legs, back resting lightly against Alex’s chest. They’re more or less cramped in the narrow tub and they both have to keep their legs bent a little, but Piper hardly cares. The water feels delicious on her skin. So does Alex.

She rests her head on Alex’s shoulder. Every few minutes they share a kiss. Piper touches Alex’s lips lightly but Alex always deepens it. She ghosts her hands down Piper’s arms, giving her chills where they stick out of the warm water. Her nipples harden and Alex notices, ghosting over her breasts and circling her fingers over her areolas so that they’re painfully hard and Piper arches up to kiss her.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” Alex murmurs next to her lips, voice even lower than usual.

It’s been a while since Piper has heard that sentiment and it makes her stomach flip with desire. But she lets it pass, enjoying the sensuality of this moment and sensing Alex is too.

Alex wraps her arms over Piper’s stomach under the water and they stay like that for long minutes. Piper actually catches herself dozing until Alex speaks again.

“So how does this rank on the Housewife Domesticity Scale?” Alex drawls into her ear.

Piper wiggles her shoulders against her and lays her head back into the crook of Alex’s neck, closing her eyes.

“On a scale of one to ten? Well, the surprise definitely gives you at least a five. And you used scented bubble bath that’s not too strong. Plus the vanilla incense. So that’s at least a seven.”

She smirks to herself when she feels Alex shift under her, her voice dubious.

“ _Only_ a seven?”

“I wasn’t done. There’s the three extra points.”

“What for?”

Piper opens her eyes and her sight is filled with Alex’s face.

“Just for you,” she adds matter-of-factly.

Alex’s eyebrow goes up and she returns the smirk.

“I’ll take that.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence and Piper’s muscles start to ease out. She feels like she could stay like this forever, with Alex wrapped all around her. She feels protected and safe. She feels…

“You feel like home,” she says, almost absently.

Alex’s chest rises a little sharply and she hears the intake of breath. Fingers brush her half-wet hair from off her cheek.

“About what you said earlier,” says Alex, “about us settling down…”

Piper opens her eyes. She can hear the subtle tension building in her voice. She runs her fingertips up and down Alex’s bare leg.

“Yea?”

“I honestly don’t know, Pipes, if I can even do that. I can’t really imagine myself like that.”

Piper cuts off the noise of distress before it can reach her throat. She sits up a little and stares at the double mounds of their knees out of the water.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…”

Alex huffs out a breath.

“I know that I want to live with you, to be with you. But if it’s gonna be like working all day then coming home, cooking dinner and going to bed, rinse, repeat, I don’t know if I can do that. We both know I’m too fucking restless.”

There’s obvious stress in her tone now but her confession isn’t as throttling as Piper had thought it might be. She thinks of her top secret “project” she’s been working on and weighs it against Alex’s words.

“Pipes?”

She realizes she’s taken too long to reply. She turns to look at Alex, whose big green eyes are filled with worry.

“I don’t want that either,” she says calmly. “I thought I did. For a long time. But that was life with Larry. I don’t want to live with you like I did with Larry.”

It’s the first time she’s spoken about Larry in months. The longest she’s gone without saying his name, Piper realizes with a jolt. Their life together seems like a dream to her now, blurry around the edges and harder to grasp as time goes on.

Alex is searching her face, wary as always. Piper’s confidence wavers. She’s not sure what Alex is searching for here. She remembers all too well what life was like with Alex when she was at the height of her drug dealing.

“I don’t want a repeat of Paris, Alex,” she says with too much force but she can’t help it. “Just because we don’t fall into domestic bliss doesn’t mean I’m willing to follow you around like a lost puppy again, begging for scraps.”

Piper tries helplessly to mentally check herself, knowing she’s saying everything with thorns, but damnit, there are things that need to be said.

Alex visibly stiffens like a panther putting its ears back.

“Fucking tell me how you really feel, Pipes,” she spits out. She lets out a bitter laugh. “I really thought we were through dragging up past bullshit.”

Piper can feel the water growing cold.

“No, no, Alex please,” she begs suddenly when Alex starts to rise. The fight is gone from her voice and she sounds pathetic to her own ears. Alex’s body pauses, then relents back into the tub. Piper cups her face in her hands even though Alex is resisting it. She rolls her eyes before settling them on Piper’s.

“I didn’t mean to drag up the past,” Piper says. “But I mean it when I say I don’t want this whole fucked up control, give-and-take, whatever it is between us, to be with us anymore. Not like that.”

Alex’s mouth turns down into a frown.

“Neither do I.”

“Okay. Good.”

The sentiment isn’t as comforting as she wants and hangs between them. Alex rolls her eyes again, lips pressed tightly together. Piper doesn’t like it and kisses her until her lips part and Piper slides her tongue in and fuck, Alex’s mouth is hot and tastes like fruit and cigarettes. Alex pushes forward against her. Their breasts rub together. Piper feels a sharp throbbing between her legs as Alex sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. Then she pulls away, fisting Piper’s hair at the base of her skull and preventing her from following. Piper lets out a small moan. Alex’s gaze feels unrelenting. She’s aggravated but she’s also aroused.

This, Piper knows, is why they’ve never been able to escape each other’s orbit.

Alex’s eyes narrow.

“Does this have anything to do with this grand plan of yours?” she demands.

“What? What are you talking about?”

Alex sneers and lets out another mirthless laugh under her breath.

“Oh my god.”

“Okay, it does,” says Piper urgently. “But I promise, it’s a _good_ plan. At least I want it to be. Give me through the weekend, okay? I’ll tell you everything. Please.”

The grip on her hair falls slack and Piper immediately crushes her lips into Alex again, desperate to somehow prove her good intentions. Alex lets her until they’re both short of breath but as soon as they break apart the moment is over.

“I’m getting out. It’s too cold,” Alex says.

Piper nods and they leave the tub and drain the water. They dry off and dress and head downstairs for dinner. The mood is lighter with Cal and Neri around and Alex looks over at her and smiles twice as though nothing is the matter. And Piper’s not entirely sure that something _is_ the matter, except that not everything is a hundred percent fine, either.

They hang around in the living room for a little while, until Cal leaves the tv on _Live PD_. He goes on about how addicting the show is—basically like _Cops_ from the 90s—but Piper immediately dislikes it.

Alex and Neri go in the kitchen to make popcorn and return. Piper reluctantly sits down on the couch, stuffing her face with popcorn and watching police officers chase after the entire spectrum of criminal offenders, from a guy caught masturbating to porn while driving to dangerous felons threatening police in the middle of the night with a baseball bat. She’s okay until there’s a segment where a police officer is questioning a Latino boy. The boy is drunk and sitting on someone else’s porch all alone, refusing to move. But the boy seems miserable to Piper; there’s a desperation to him and he’s almost crying when the officer begins to forcibly remove him from the porch stoop.

“Just get the hell up, kid, geez,” Cal says from his chair.

Piper tries not to squirm in her seat. The officer is being too aggressive, she thinks. She rubs the back of her neck and takes off her flannel shirt, too hot. The Latino boy is flat on his stomach, crying out for someone to help him as the officer tries to cuff him.

 _He’s just trying to manipulate the officer_ , she tells herself, but it doesn’t help the rising panic in her chest. She has to focus on the carpet, trying to breathe normally and feeling aggravated with herself.

“Hey Pipes,” Alex chimes in next to her. “Wanna help me figure out that thing on the Internet we talked about?”

Piper looks at her confused, but…oh. Alex’s eyes are worry-full for her.

Neri and Cal mumble out something dismissive but Piper doesn’t really hear them. Alex grips Piper’s arm as she rises off the couch and doesn’t let go. Piper is grateful. She makes it up the stairs and leans heavily against the wall, hands on her knees. Alex is beside her, rubbing her hand between her shoulder blades.

“Just breathe, babe.”

Piper nods. She manages to regain control quicker this time. Her lungs ease up and everything loosens up in her head. She straightens.

“I’m ok.”

Alex’s eyes are searching her but Piper is reluctant to meet them.

“Yea?”

“Yea.”

She decides to lay down for a few minutes, suddenly tired. It’s not a physical fatigue. The day has made her brain hurt and she just wishes everything was fine between them. Alex is telling her about some anti-anxiety medication she could look into.

“I could take one of your Lexapros—”

Alex snaps her head in Piper’s direction. Piper winces, instantly regretful.

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay, sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She takes a sharp breath and sits up on her elbows, suddenly remembering other drugs in question.

“Hey, what about the heroin? Don’t you have to give it to him by tomorrow?”

Alex sighs and runs a hand through her mane of black hair.

“Yea.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Alex shrugs.

“Call him and go meet him somewhere.”

Piper doesn’t respond right away, biting her tongue at how much she hates this situation. She settles for “Fine. But I’m driving.”

It’s not a request. Alex opens her mouth to protest.

“You don’t have a license,” Piper says flatly.

Alex frowns down at the bed. She has a license but it’s expired and they both know it.

“Okay,” she says softly.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost to the end! This could be considered the final chapter, but there's an epilogue-type chapter I'll post very soon after this. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting; it means a lot.

Alex is only mildly nervous when they pull into the mall parking lot the next day in Cal’s truck. Hellman is where he said he’d be, near the center and by the lamppost in a blue Honda. Piper makes sure to pull into a spot across from him where she has full view of his car.

“I don’t like this,” she tells Alex for the twelfth time.

Alex is fingering the wad of money in her pocket. She’s impatient to get this over with but she can’t ignore Piper’s concern either. She twists in the seat and plants her glasses on her head to look at Piper.

“Look, he didn’t argue when I insisted we meet out in the open. I’ll be there and back in two minutes. He knows you’re watching. It’ll be fine.”

Piper’s lips are in a tight line but she nods. They bend across the console and Piper cups her cheek as they kiss.

It all happens in roughly two minutes. Hellman gets out of his car when Alex approaches. They glance around them and wait for a couple of people to pass them in the lot. Then she hands over the money. Hellman shuffles the bills through his hands quickly, counting. He doesn’t make eye contact with her, not really.

“All right,” is all he says.

“Don’t ask me again,” Alex tells him.

His lips form a smirking sneer and he gets into his car. Alex turns around and returns to the truck. They watch Hellman pull out of the space and drive away.

“What did he say?” asks Piper.

Alex shrugs.

“Nothing really. I told him not to contact me again.”

“And?”

“And he fucking laughed.”

The sentence comes out angry and Alex realizes she _is_ angry.

“Fucking asshole,” she seethes out through clenched teeth.

“He didn’t say anything about Nicky?” Piper asks her gently.

Alex shakes her head. Suddenly she feels fucking useless again. She lets out a bitter scoff.

“I thought I was helping her, Pipes. I think all I did was help him.”

Piper’s hand lands over her own and squeezes.

“You did what you thought would matter,” she says. “That’s all you could do, Al. We’ll check on Nicky tomorrow, okay? Maybe give her a phone number so she can call us.”

Alex looks at her, feeling slightly less shitty.

*

They call the prison and communicate Piper’s phone number to the front desk. A few hours later she answers to the recording of ‘An inmate from Litchfield State Penitentiary is attempting to contact you.’ It’s Nicky. Piper puts her on speaker for Alex and Nicky tells them she’s ok. Hellman told her he got paid but hadn’t said or asked anything else of her yet. Piper gives her an angry earful about the whole thing. She threatens to not speak to Nicky ever again if she tries to pull something like this again. For the most part Nicky takes it without too many sarcastic replies. Then she tells Alex some actual good news.

“I got my hands on that Batman graphic novel the other day,” she says.

Alex had completely forgotten. She grins into the phone. It broadens when Piper gives her a confused look.

“How is it?” she asks.

“Fuckin’ dark, man. But…I think I can read it,” she adds dismissively, but Alex can practically see her smiling on the other end.

“Do it, Nichols,” Alex says firmly. “I’ll get Red to spy on you.”

Nicky guffaws.

“You kiddin’ me? You think she doesn’t try every chance she gets anyway? But uh, what about you guys? You still slummin’ it with Chapman’s brother or are you two lying naked in a giant bed somewhere in Cambodia?”

Alex glances at Piper. She goes a little still but answers Nicky.

“Um no, no bed in Cambodia, but we’re working on a plan. _I’m_ working on a plan.”

“Piper is planning out our lives out so I don’t have to,” Alex inserts loudly into the phone.

It’s meant to be a tease and it is—a little. Piper elbows her and Alex smirks. But there’s a tension in Piper about this, she can tell. They finish out their ten minutes with Nicky and end the call. Piper immediately changes the subject and asks about the graphic novel. Alex tells her that part of her conversation with Nicky, but her mind is stuck on Piper’s “plan.” Tomorrow is Sunday, the end of the weekend and when Piper promised to reveal all. She wants to ask Piper about it again but thinks better of it.

She wants nothing more than to trust Piper in all things. A little patience couldn’t hurt. She hopes.

*

That night Piper is up long after Alex is asleep and snoring softly beside her.

She thinks about Nicky and Red and how fucked up the prison system is, but her thoughts are drifting to other, more urgent matters. She quietly gets up and goes to the computer. She gets online and clicks on several saved pages and looks them over for the hundredth time. She keeps catching herself chewing on her lip as her mind works over all the ‘what ifs’ and little details. Then she glances over to the bed and watches as Alex sleeps, remembering the morning in max when she woke up to Alex gazing lovingly at her from the cell doorway. That melting feeling engulfs her again and again, she can’t shake the sensation of how safe Alex makes her feel. It’s an odd emotion, she thinks. She never felt particularly in danger before or after Alex anyway (she tries not to remember the reasons leading to their break-up in Paris).

She never felt that way with Larry. Larry was safe for _her._ Too safe, maybe. The life she had so meticulously planned out with him would have eventually fallen apart even if she hadn’t wound up in prison. She knows that now. Larry had been like one of those asteroids that gets sucked into the orbit of a planet; something that seemed to make sense but didn’t really belong.

One way or another, her orbit would have found Alex’s again. Her own words to Alex come back to her:

_Why do you always feel so inevitable to me?_

Alex shifts and rolls over in bed. Piper watches the slight rise and fall of her chest as she sighs in her sleep.

She’s fucking terrified. She lets the thought break through for the first time. She still isn’t one hundred percent certain Alex will accept her plan. It’s a big fucking plan. Her intention isn’t to map out the rest of their lives but to give them a real starting point that—she hopes—both of them want.

_We both know I don’t have the balls to free-fall through life with you._

_But if it’s gonna be like working all day then coming home, cooking dinner and going to bed, rinse, repeat, I don’t know if I can do that. We both know I’m too fucking restless._

She’s chewing on her lip again. Across from her desk the moon is nearly full outside. It shines brightly through the window. She considers lowering the blinds finally but then decides against it. It’s too pretty, and why should using window blinds signify some sort of return to normality? No, not normality…more like settling down. Why should she even care? Alex hadn’t cared. Piper blinks and gets up from the desk to look out the window, yawning. She doesn’t care, actually. She smiles up at the moon, then turns back to Alex. She switches off the computer and crawls in next to her.

“I heart you,” she whispers, and tries not to feel terrified.

*

“Hey.”

Piper gives her a sleepy good morning smile.

“Hey.”

Alex reads another page or two while Piper wakes up. Then she sets down her book and rolls on her side, propping her head up with an elbow.

“It’s Sunday,” she says.

Piper stretches again.

“Uh huh. Sure is,” she says, too carelessly, and Alex can sense the tug of a smirk on her lips.

“So?” Alex asks pointedly.

Piper soothes a hand over Alex’s bare arm.

“So…what?”

Alex rolls her eyes.

“Really, Pipes?”

Piper’s eyes light up comically.

“Oh right! It’s Sunday. Didn’t I say we’re gonna start going to church?”

Alex snorts.

“Yea, right, says the atheist.”

Alex flings the covers off them and deftly rolls herself on top of Piper, straddling her and pinning her arms against the fluffy pillow over her head. Her ink-black hair hangs down around her face. Piper giggles and blows it out of her own face.

“Your body language is sending out very strong messages this morning, Mrs. Chapman-Vause.”

Alex nudges her hips up on the bed, effectively rubbing their crotches together as she straddles her fiancé. Piper makes a sound in her throat.

“I’m not letting you go until you spill,” Alex says.

Piper narrows her eyes and sucks in her bottom lip. It’s teasing and playful, but then it fades. She inhales deeply and lets it out slowly. Alex watches the rise and fall of her chest and breasts.

“I can’t tell you my secret plan. It’s something I have to show you.”

“Hmph. Typical.”

Alex grins, looking down at her, but Piper’s face remains somber in a soft way, sapphire eyes clear but somehow heavy. Alex isn’t used to this look and isn’t sure what it means. She lets go of Piper’s wrists and moves her hands down the opposite direction, creeping down between Piper’s breasts and past her stomach. Piper’s hand jerks out and grabs her wrist just as Alex makes it inside her panties.

“No, not now.”

“Why not?”

“Because we need to get an early start on our road trip.”

“Road trip?” Alex snorts out.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Alex removes her hand (albeit still a little reluctantly) and lets Piper up.

Three hours, two showers, and a bit of packing later they’re on the road. Alex has never let anyone lead her blindly in any sense of the word, and this feels like some kind of surprise party, like wherever Piper is taking her will end with a huge present at the final destination.

Except Piper is much too calm now. Alex senses she’s nervous, which in turn makes her nervous. She can’t imagine what the hell Piper is up to that would be this big of a deal. Well, maybe there are a few educated guesses. Since Piper refuses to tell her anything about where they’re going Alex tries to content herself with making said guesses as they start out driving through downtown. She quickly comes up short, however, when she realizes for the first time how little they’ve actually discussed…well, anything really.

With a start Alex realizes that they’ve been living with Cal and Neri for two months and haven’t talked about a single goddamn important thing about their lives together.

Well. Fuck. She had hardly noticed.

Piper tells her to pull out the small CD case from the glove box and to put something in. Road trip music, no doubt. Alex thumbs through the case. Every single CD in it is a mix, burnt off the computer. And every single CD contains songs that aren’t just songs but memories.

“Jesus, our entire European trip is in here,” she blurts out.

Piper flashes her a smile and a look. Alex can’t resist the tease.

“I was curious before. Now I’m totally freaked out.”

Piper snorts.

“Shut up and put something in.”

Smirking, Alex complies and in a few seconds the sounds of Shirley Manson and _Garbage_ fill up the car. She doesn’t let Piper know how touched she is that she’s made this, and done it all without her even knowing. Her mind wonders of its own accord to their time together overseas; brief flashes here and there:

Nights out on the town and in bars. Piper wearing a pretty dark blue blouse with tight sheer sleeves, her hair curly and long. A Jacuzzi on the top of a skyscraper at night, their bodies hot and needy. The inside of a book store, sipping coffee made from single origin beans and nursing hangovers. Buying wall paintings for their duplex in Amsterdam of fantasy art and risque naked women. Kissing each other in Paris with fireworks going off to bring in the new year.

Piper gazing at her in bed and telling her for the first time _‘I love you too.'_

It’s a veritable flood of memories and Alex’s eyes are blurry. She swallows and turns her head to look out the window and discreetly wipe away the tears.

*

Alex tracks their trip as best she can. Green signs along the interstate tell her they’re heading southeast. She tries to remember the last time she’s been on this road. At least ten or twelve years ago, back when she had an apartment in Manhattan for about a year.

Two hours into the drive and they pass signs for Clifton, Newark, and Manhattan. She tries pestering Piper for information but the blonde remains tight-lipped, throwing sarcastic replies at her instead.

They pass Clifton and Newark and Alex sees they’re heading for a bridge to cross over into Manhattan. She hates admitting to herself how desperate she’s growing to know where in the hell they’re going and what in the hell this is all about, thank you very fucking much.

They head into the streets of Lower Manhattan and Alex recognizes the museums and theaters they pass. Like a dog with its head stuck out the window she senses they’re getting close to their destination. Piper is chewing on her bottom lip nonstop. She consults her phone a few times, refusing to let Alex see the map on display there.

“Pipes, I swear to God if you don’t tell me something soon I’m gonna hold you at gunpoint.”

“Almost there, I promise.”

Alex lets out a huff and runs a hand through her hair.

“We’d better be. I have to pee.”

Piper grins but keeps her focus on the drive. They turn down another street that Alex is very familiar with. She knows Piper is too.

The late afternoon has become overcast and cooler when she pulls Neri’s car up against a curb with a parking meter. Alex looks around the area, feeling a cautious excitement. Piper is grinning broadly now, unbuckling and ushering her out of the car. She puts some coins in the meter and lets out a breath of air.

“Ok. How about we go pee in there.”

She gestures across the street where a bright neon bar sign beckons customers. She’s looking at Alex with unabashed pleasure. Alex feels her chest jump with sudden nostalgia as she looks at the old bar and restaurant. Its outside has gotten a face lift since she last saw it, but it’s the same place.

“What, that dump?” she says.

Piper’s jaw drops, eyes comically wide in disbelief, but Alex knows the smirk on her own face is growing exponentially before Piper can get truly upset. Piper’s eyes narrow at her.

“Yes,” says Alex, her voice a tinge softer, “We can go into the bar where we first met. But I really hope we didn’t drive half the day to get drunk on margaritas.”

Piper’s secret smile returns to her face and she extends her hand. Alex lifts a brow at her but twines their fingers together, finding Piper adorable in the moment. They cross the street and walk in to the bar. The inside has had a bit of redecorating too since the last time they were here over ten years ago, but the layout is the same; a warm glow from the lights, tables lined against the wall and in the center, with the bar over to the left.

Once they’re in Piper turns to her.

“So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but a narcissist and a pragmatist walk into a bar…”

Alex grins again.

Piper walks them over to a window table. Immediately a waitress approaches them and cheerily greets them.

“Can I start you off with drinks?” she asks.

Alex meets Piper’s eyes across the table.

“Two margaritas,” says Piper. “With limes.”

She goes off to take their order.

“Just think that could be you in a parallel universe,” says Alex.

“Hmm. Only if I hadn’t met you first.”

Piper is beaming at her and as much as Alex could assume it’s a good thing she can’t. Her anxiety rises again.

“Pipes, what are we doing here?”

Piper sobers a little. She sits her purse on the table. It’s not her usual wallet purse but a full sized purse, though it doesn’t look very full. Alex had noticed but hadn’t thought anything of it. Now Piper pulls out papers. Or, more accurately, what looks like paperwork, complete with staples. She neatly slides a small packet over to Alex without a word. Alex flashes her a look before looking at the pages.

“It’s a contract. To rent out a beach house,” says Piper quietly.

Alex’s own eyes confirm this. The last page has two lines for signatures that are empty. Alex sucks in a breath and very slowly meets Piper’s eyes again.

“I’ve been researching,” she starts to explain. “Finding places in Florida that were available. I’ve been looking for almost a month now and the owners of this house are looking to sell it sometime next year, but they’re still renting it out for now. You can see from the pictures how amazing it looks, inside and out.”

Alex’s mouth keeps moving to form words. Finally she manages, “Piper…”

But Piper cuts her off. “Wait. I know. But there’s more. Let me get it all out first and then you can tell me how you feel.”

Alex feels like she’s fallen off the deep end of…something. Dazed, she sets the papers down and waves her hand for Piper to continue, pushing her glasses up on her head and crossing her arms.

Piper is visibly nervous. She takes a deep breath and keeps twisting her fingers together. Their drinks arrive. Piper immediately takes a long sip from hers before continuing.

“Ok. So. I started a savings account before I was sentenced, when I was still living with Larry. But it’s all mine, in my name. There’s enough there for us to do this. And…”

She fishes out more papers from her purse, the portable briefcase, and presents them on the table for Alex.

“I’ve also looked long and hard at jobs down there. Not retail or some other bullshit job. There’s a lot of tattoo parlors, and one of them is looking to hire not only established artists but also train new people as apprentices first. The pay rate would start off at $12.50 an hour.”

“Piper…”

“Wait! Please, Al.”

Piper looks almost pleadingly at her, sapphire eyes like a puppy dog’s so Alex bites her tongue and lets her continue.

“I know that’s not stellar but honestly it’s a lot better than other places I saw. And—I know this was fucking presumptuous of me, but—I thought it might be something you could really get into. And for me, I already spoke to the owner of a bar and grill down there that does really well, even during the off season. They’re looking for waitresses who will work through the winter months. And with my money from savings we could afford the beach house and still be able to go out and do things. By the time the house is up for sale we should be able to afford making payments on it. I know, I know, Alex…”

Piper pauses, closing her eyes. She opens them and wipes a hand over her mouth.

“This is a lot of planning and maybe it’s too much, too fast, and I’m sorry. I don’t mean to overwhelm you all at once, but I know you’re probably getting sick of living with my brother and…”

“ _Piper_!”

Piper’s mouth clamps closed.

“Just…give me a minute.”

Piper tucks her arms in close to her sides, hands under the table. The ensuing silence is a both a relief and nerve-wracking. Alex looks down at all the paperwork in front of her. She looks at the Google photos of the tattoo place, then the bar and grill. She can’t possibly read any of it right now. She shakes her head and shoves the papers to the side, refocusing on the blonde across the table, whose face is pulled impossibly tight, lips pursed, looking as though she’s about to take a plunge from the top of a roller-coaster.

Alex feels everything all at once. Nights out on the town and in bars. Piper wearing a pretty dark blue blouse with tight sheer sleeves, her hair curly and long. A Jacuzzi on the top of a skyscraper at night, their bodies hot and needy. She remembers with crystal clarity how damn happy she is when she’s with Piper, because she’s feeling it now.

A laugh bubbles out of her.

“I’m blown away,” she says.

Piper is wearing the same look on her face when she proposed to Alex, full of hopeful apprehension.

“So…I did good?” she asks.

Alex gets up and swiftly crosses the table. She takes Piper’s face in her hands and kisses her hotly, then climbs between the table and Piper to straddle her lap, lips never leaving Piper’s.

“You are amazing,” Alex breaths out.

Piper lets out a shriek, smiling and laughing and kissing her.

“Hey, you two, excuse me,” comes a male voice behind them. It’s the bartender—or owner—gesturing at them. But he looks completely baffled and it makes both of them snicker. Alex gives her one more kiss before climbing off and returning to her seat, trying to look contrite.

They drink a toast with their margaritas. Alex drinks up, letting the alcohol add to her general giddiness.

“Okay. Now we need to talk about our wedding,” says Piper after a few minutes.

“Oh Jesus,” says Alex, pretending to look exhausted.

But even that is a surprise. Piper proposes they just go to a courthouse and skip the wedding altogether.

“But you were so excited about it in prison,” Alex protests, surprised.

“I know. But I also know you didn’t want the grand spectacle like I did. And honestly Al, I can’t think of anything that would top our prison wedding. Being surprised like that, and having Nicky and Lorna there, and even Cindy and Flaca, meant more to me than I realized at the time. They’re our friends. And it was…perfect. _You_ made it perfect.”

Piper is beaming again and Alex would laugh at her if it weren’t for the tears forming in her eyes. She wipes at them and shakes her head.

“Asshole.”

Piper sucks in her bottom lip, smiling.

“Thanks. So are you.”


	10. Chapter 10

They spend the rest of the night bar hopping and wondering the streets of Lower Manhattan, returning a couple of times to pump coins in the meter in-between bouts of re-discovering the city. Piper helps herself to whatever drinks she wants that night, too happy to worry about driving home. Alex quickly deduces that might have been the reason for the extra set of clothes they brought.

Everything looks bright and welcoming to Piper that night, from the rain puddles on the sidewalk reflecting the colors of the city to the stray cat that comes up and greets their legs to the elderly couple crossing the street in front of them, holding hands. Piper can’t help but to take up Alex’s hand in hers as they wonder around. Alex doesn’t say anything, just takes Piper’s hand in hers, smiling.

Piper feels like she could burst. _Confetti grenade_ she thinks drunkenly. She giggles. Alex nudges her arm playfully.

“What’s so funny?”

“You make me feel full of confetti,” answers Piper.

“You’re weird.”

“Not as weird as you.”

“Hey! Want to buy some of those Black and Milds we smoked in London?” Alex asks suddenly as they arrive in front of a liquor store advertising for the mini cigars.

They buy a box—just four of them in there—along with a lighter. They find a late-night restaurant with outside seating and light up the cigars there while ordering more drinks. They start the game of people-watching. The streets are alive tonight despite it being a Sunday. A group of bikers stops at a red light in front of them.

“Ooh, check out biker dyke,” says Piper, eyeing a woman with close-cropped blonde hair and attractive features.

“Not bad,” chimes in Alex. “Wow, she’s got a much sexier nose than you.”

“What? Fuck off!”

She’s a little too loud but doesn’t care. Alex hasn’t stopping grinning all night and her cheeks are rosy. Piper tugs on the front of Alex’s shirt for another kiss. The motorcycles roar to life again as the light turns green. Their riders must have spotted the two of them lip locked and Piper hears them whistle suggestively. She looks up to see the blonde women giving them a thumbs up.

“Thank you,” she yells out politely.

Alex chuckles. Despite the noise and attention her eyes are on Piper only.

 

They go back to Neri’s car and Alex drives them a few blocks to the nearest hotel. When they check in Piper announces proudly gives their name to the woman behind the desk as Mrs. Vause-Chapman. She shows her their makeshift rings. Alex nudges her with her elbow. The woman doesn’t seem the least bit phased.

“Well congratulations,” she says as she hands them two key cards.

They take the elevator to the second floor and crash into their room. Alex spreads her arms out in front of the queen-sized bed.

“Oh my god, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

She flops herself down on it. Piper joins her, sprawling herself out.

“Jesus, it feels like it goes on for miles,” she muses.

She sits back up and strips off her shirt. Alex is watching her, head propped up with an arm. Piper crawls over her, eager for more Alex-lips. But this time Piper takes her time, kissing her slowly with a mix of chastity and deeper, more penetrating kisses, until Alex is humming in her throat and arching up into her.

Piper helps her out of her shirt and bra. She spends long minutes appreciating the swell of Alex’s breasts and making her nipples peaked. Her fingers tease along Alex’s waist line. They unbutton her jeans and dip inside her panties. Then suddenly Piper stops.

“Are you sure you’re okay with everything?” she asks, blinking up at Alex. “Because if you’re not I really want you to tell me. We don’t have to have a beach house. With your complexion you’ll get burnt. And the rate for skin cancer is like twenty percent higher for pale people—”

Alex puts a finger over her lips. She rolls her eyes but she’s smirking.

“Shut up, Pipes. You’re drunk.”

“No, I have a good buzz. There’s a difference. I’m perfectly capable of a lot of things right now.”

“Oh yea?”

“Yes.”

Alex is challenging her and Piper slips her hand back inside her panties, just barely touching Alex’s clit while her lips lick a trail up to her navel. She continues teasing her fiancé until Alex impatiently pulls her own jeans off and starts unzipping Piper’s. But even after they’re both nude Piper doesn’t pick up her pace. She licks gently between Alex’s legs a few times before moving to suck bruises onto her thighs. The latter makes Alex moan a little. She writhes against Piper’s touches, wanting more.

“Get on your knees,” Piper says.

“Not your gayest line ever, but in this case…” Alex cuts off with a smile.

Piper is on a mission to wipe the smirk off her face completely and replace it with something more needful.

As soon as Alex is on her knees Piper lays down behind her and pushes her way between her legs, giving her ass a smack as she does so. Alex spreads herself more as Piper’s head appears from between her thighs. Piper actually sees those olive eyes dilate and grow heavy when Alex figures out what she’s up to. It makes her body throb faintly.

The view is also breathtaking. Piper looks straight up and lets her eyes roam up the expanse of Alex’s body.

“Your tits look fantastic from this angle.”

Alex quirks her eyebrow. Piper wraps her hands around Alex’s thighs and pulls them down. Alex’s sex hovers over her face. Piper closes her eyes and inhales, feeling another ripple of desire move through her. Alex’s heat is so close. Piper flicks the tip of her tongue over her. Alex shudders at the tiny contact.

“Fuck Pipes…”

Piper does it a few more times, until Alex is muttering curses and trying to press herself over Piper’s mouth. But Piper holds her thighs, tight and controlling. She finally presses her mouth over Alex completely, kissing and sucking. The noises Alex makes above her are priceless. She works Alex until her sex is practically dripping wet. Her hand is tangled into Piper’s hair, squeezing and pulling depending on what Piper is doing to her. Piper takes a short rest. Her tongue is a little achy but it’s worth it. Alex looks down at her. She’s breathless and her eyes are glazed over.

“Piper…” she begs, her voice low and trembling.

Piper presses one, then two fingers inside her and starts fucking her. She flicks her tongue out again and in short time she feels Alex tense up, her breath short and heavy. She comes, letting out a long moan that gets louder as Piper keeps fucking her.

Piper can’t help but feel possessive in the moment. She and only she gets to do this to Alex, to make her feel like this. To _see_ Alex like this; raw and open and wanting.

Alex collapses on the bed afterwards, trying to catch her breath.

Piper licks her lips and tastes the bittersweet honey there. They look at each other and dissolve into giddy laughter.

*

She feels like rubber all over, like she’s just gotten the best body massage on earth, but Alex isn’t nearly ready for bed. She needs to feel Piper, needs to touch her. She rolls over and up and pins Piper to the bed. Piper’s eyes flash excitedly. Alex sucks a nipple into her mouth and sucks hard. Piper lets out a gasp and a little ‘oh!’

Her fingers waste no time in finding Piper’s pussy. They both moan at the moisture already there. Alex gently presses herself inside, fingers going deep. Piper arches slightly off the bed, mouth parted and eyes rolling up.

“Alex…”

Alex starts fucking her, hard and fast. She wants Piper to come and she wants to see her face when she does. Piper fists the sheets and her own hair, helpless under her. She clamps her mouth over the side of Alex’s neck as Alex pushes up against her and inside her, their nipples brushing together between them and sending more jolts of pleasure through her. Alex pushes in as deep as she can. The butt of her palm rubs Piper’s clit and Piper lets out another string of ‘ohs’ and ‘fucks.’ Her hands wonder desperately over every inch of Alex she can get to; her ribs, her ass, the back of her neck. She finds Alex’s face and forces their mouths together. It’s hardly a kiss but Alex relishes it. Piper’s breath is punched out over and over again as Alex drives her fingers against her.

“Alex, fuck, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come…”

“Show don’t tell,” Alex mumbles against her neck.

Piper does as she’s told. Her back arches up and her thighs shake. Alex watches as Piper’s face pinches together, then goes slack, a loud moan shaking itself out of her mouth.

It’s mesmerizing. Alex pulls out and gently rubs over her pussy, intensifying the aftershocks and making Piper inhale sharply and bite her bottom lip hard.

 

Afterwards they lay tangled against one another. Piper’s motor mouth has gone quiet. She feels tremendously good. Her brain is too love-drunk and a little too drunk-drunk to formulate a coherent thought. But the night isn’t over yet and she’s happy that neither one of them seem able to stop touching each other for very long.

She’s never felt like this with Larry or anyone else. The familiar shade of self-loathing rolls through her again at all the missteps and mistakes she’s made with Alex. She repeats her mantra to herself again.

_I will never hurt you again. I will never be selfish with you._

Except in this moment she wants to be nothing but selfish with Alex, but in the best possible way. She doesn’t want this night to end.

They’ve already made love three times and it’s nearing 3 am but they’re both still awake. She’s too tired to try for orgasm number four but she runs her fingers down Alex’s body; over her breast and to her stomach, twirling a finger around her navel and then down her thigh.

Alex is watching her. Her hand trails up Piper’s thigh and rests on the side of her butt. Piper kisses her. Alex deepens it, tongue hot and still needy inside her. Something not really visible shifts in her gaze on Piper.

“What?” she asks softly.

Alex blinks slowly and sits up on her elbow.

“Can I ask why you did all of this?”

Her tone is still soft but a little tense and Piper pictures the panther still content but no longer showing its soft underbelly. ‘All this,’ Piper knows, means everything Piper has thrown at her today.

It’s a question that deserves to be asked.

“You can ask that,” she replies.

She shifts a little on her back and twirls a lock of long black hair around her finger.

“I did it because I want us to be happy, for _you_ to be happy. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about the past and how fucking horrible I was. There is a part of me still trying to repent.”

It’s hard as hell to actually say it out loud this way, like swallowing needles. It’s worse when Alex is looking at her the way she is now and when she gently takes Piper’s hair-twirling hand in her own. But Piper goes on.

“I had you back after calling your probation officer because I wanted you so badly. And then I shut you out during the whole panty business. And at the worst possible time for you…”

Alex’s face darkens. It’s only an echo of faded pain but Piper feels it as though it were yesterday. She swallows hard and stares up at the ceiling, turning away from Alex for the first time since they’d gotten in bed.

“But I know now that there is no making up for that, not really,” she continues. “Or anything else that might still hang between us some days. I get that now. Mostly I’m just grateful you’re still…here.”

She stops for fear of the sob rising in her throat. She’d rather choke on it than risk Alex thinking she’s feeling sorry for herself instead of the razor-sharp regret she feels.

Alex’s long fingers are on her face, gently forcing her to turn her head.

“Hey,” she says in a silken tone that makes Piper want to sob even more, “You’re not the same person anymore. I know it even if you don’t, Pipes. I trust you. More than I ever have, if I’m being honest.”

Piper lets out a shaky breath and turns away again but not before a tiny, strangled sound escape over her lips. Tears fill her eyes. She doesn’t know how to respond. Alex scoots an inch closer against her, lips on her jaw and neck in the barest of kisses. At last Piper finds her voice.

“Who knew a post-sex cathartic moment could be so exhausting?”

Alex chuckles against her skin and Piper mirrors it.

“No shit,” Alex mumbles against her throat. “But you gotta admit, the whole honesty thing is pretty nice.”

“It really is.”

She rolls over to face Alex and their bodies press together once more. Suddenly she’s burning again, her skin tingling where Alex’s touches it. She digs her hands into Alex’s hair at the base of her skull and Alex tops her, pressing their lips together hard. Piper moans into it.

It’s nearly 4 am when they finally fall asleep.

At some point she stirs from a deep sleep into a nightmare. In the late morning she doesn’t remember much of it but she does remember Alex’s voice at her ear and soothing arms wrapping around her.

*

_Epilogue_

Somewhere in Florida

 

They still have nightmares sometimes, but they’re fewer and far in-between.

Piper hasn’t had a panic attack in months. She looks away from her book long enough to take a sip from a bottle of water that has more than just water in it. There’s no alcoholic beverages allowed on the beach of course, but she and Alex have worked around that. A husky voice calls out to her.

“Hey, Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

The smile coats Piper’s lips automatically. She’s letting her hair grow out long again. She puts down her book and looks up as Alex makes her way back from the shoreline. She’s wearing a black bikini with a beach skirt around her waist. The ocean breeze blows her long black hair to the side. Piper drinks her in, her smile stuck on her face. She frowns a little at Alex’s darkened complexion as she stands in front of her.

“This isn’t fair,” Piper whines. “How is it I get fried out here every summer and you, of all people, manage to get an even tan? Do you know this is the darkest I’ve ever seen you? I’m wondering if I’m dealing with Invasion of the Body Snatchers here.”

“Well I see no reason to replace me with a tanned version of myself, except for the distinct possibility the aliens wanted to taunt you mercilessly with my hot bod.”

“Oh _please_!”

Smirking, Alex nods at the book in her lap.

“How can you see to read that under all this shade?”

She jerks the umbrella away from Piper, exposing her reddened and very well-lotioned skin to the blinding sun. Piper winces and smacks at Alex’s hand.

“You bitch!” she shrieks.

She’s up and chasing an unrepentant Alex towards the beach. Alex skids backwards into the water. Piper reaches down and splashes water at her face. Alex grabs the offending pair of hands so Piper can’t repeat the action. Piper’s struggle to free herself is half-hearted at best. She licks her lips, tasting salt.

“You are smoking in that bikini, Body Snatchers or not,” she mumbles.

Alex grins triumphantly and pulls her in for a kiss.

“Got any more hooch left, or did you drink it already?”

Piper rolls her eyes.

“You don’t have to keep calling it hooch. We’re not in prison. And yes, there might be a drop or two left.”

Her eyes shift back to the boardwalk and beach access. Their house is just visible over a few sand dunes.

“When did she say they’ll be here?” Piper asks.

“Any time now. I could call and say we’ll meet at the house instead.”

Piper shakes her head.

“No. She was excited about the beach idea.”

They walk back and forth along the shoreline for a few minutes. Alex can sense Piper’s excitement. She feels the same giddiness. And then, at last, two female figures can be seen making their way down the boardwalk stairs. One has big frizzy hair—a dead giveaway—and the other has darker hair, pulled into a neat ponytail and sporting large, gold-hooped earrings. They’re both wearing short shorts.

Nicky of course is also wearing black boots.

“There they are!” Piper blurts out.

They head towards the other two women. The moment Nicky and Lorna spot them Piper breaks out into a short run. Alex smirks and shakes her head a little, but she’s already doing the same.

Lorna shrieks and bounces a little. Nicky breaks out into a Cheshire Cat-sized grin.

“Hey, look what the sharks dragged up onto the beach,” she greets them.

Lorna bounds into Piper’s arms. Alex nods at Nicky.

“Looking pretty good, Nichols,” she says evenly.

Nicky shrugs casually, but then they embrace. Nicky’s arms hold fast around her and Alex feels the waterworks welling up. She doesn’t have any time to recover herself before Lorna envelops both of them in a bear hug, crying and sobbing happily.

It wasn’t Cambodia and there were no drag queens in sight but it there were two good friends here and freedom and the sight of happiness stretched on for miles, as far as they could see.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot that didn't make it into this fic that I wished could have. I wanted especially to do more with Nicky's involvement in the story but it was proving to be too much to take on. Also there's so much history with Piper and Alex that I wanted to work into their current relationship, but again, it got overwhelming. I really hope the epilogue scene worked in terms of where they might end up realistically after Alex gets out; I figure there needed to be a compromise with how they each viewed their futures together, based on what they did or didn't tell each other in the show (esp since we didn't get any updates of that development in season 6) and I'm glad I did work that into the fic. Anyways thanks for making this fic shine for me. I'm always working on Vauseman fics these days so I'm sure there's more Vauseman to come. :)


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